


Pro Human

by Xazz



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: AU, Abstergo, End of the World, F/M, Future AU, Genetic Engineering, M/M, Military, Multi, Science Fiction, Soulmates, Templars, Those Who Came Before - Freeform, dadsassins, scifi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-12
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2017-11-14 02:03:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 206,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/510146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xazz/pseuds/Xazz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fall of society as we know it to a species killing 'plague' the world and humanity has rebuilt itself to stay on top. The world is changed, but even after 500 years there is still corruption, and where this is corruption there are Assassins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The High Season

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Do note that there are two Haythams in this story. Alpha Haytham is not AC3 Haytham. Canon Haytham doesn't come in till later chapters.**

Altair sat crouched on the parapet and looked out over the city. It was dark out, but beyond the city was alive. Overhead blimps broadcast the news and on the great Abstergo Tower a full display of the company logo, three trapezoids forming a triangle, and the words ‘A Safer Tomorrow’ under it. Altair frowned, pulling his hood tighter around his face as the wind blew away any feint fog that would have gathered around his face this winter night. He wasn’t cold though, even though his jacket was a bit thin. Upgrades in his skin stopped his nerves from register temperatures at certain degrees. He’d feel it if it was getting to the point of frost bite or serious sun burns. But for this, nothing to worry over.

He looked down, and below was a floor of glass that reached the street sidewalk some sixty stories down. Altair grinned, just a little, to himself, and tugged on a pair of white gloves. The outsides looked like rubber, but the insides were plastic, breathable, but gripped his palms and back of his hands like a second skin. He double checked the harness around his waist before standing up and looking down. Time to take a leap of faith, like they always did when they used this equipment. A novice could hurt themselves, or worse get themselves killed, if they weren’t sure of their equipment. Altair knew he would be safe, he had faith.

Slowly he tipped forward and fell forward into open air. Wind rushed past his face and threw back his hood as he flipped in mid fall. He faced the building now, arms outstretched, free falling on his stomach. Then the rope around his middle caught and he swung towards the building. Altair held his arms forward and they collided with the glass. His gloves were like shock absorbers, and the glass merely rattled, instead of breaking. Normal people would have broken both arms trying that stunt. Thank the God for reinforced skeletons.

He flipped so he was sitting mid air and took stock of what floor he was on as he tugged off his gloves, their use was over. He was at about floor forty three. He needed floor thirty six. Humming a little under his breath Altair tugged at a few straps on his harness and began to slide down the rope at a controlled pace. He reached floor thirty six and stopped, the harness jerking him to a halt.

From a pouch at his side Altair pulled out a small glass cutter. Had to love the basics and created a circle only a little bigger than his shoulders before popping the glass out. Shit. What was he supposed to do with this? He groaned, mid air, and looked down. He wasn’t afraid of heights, and his Eagle Vision kicked in, zooming in on the distance street far below. The street was empty and was so for blocks. He could drop the glass. “Fuck,” he muttered as he caught sight of the time. He had to get in and away from the window quickly, a guard was going to be coming by in less than a minute.

Altair just cut his losses and dropped the glass. Then, as if he was diving, he swung towards the hole in the glass, unhooking his harness as he did to and rolled soundlessly into the hallway. He jerked his hood up as he looked up and down the hallway, Eagle Vision automatically washing his sight out into muted green tinted grays of night vision, turning the darkness into twilight.

He stood up from his kneeling position slowly his ears catching the sound of an incoming guard. Altair ducked behind a desk and did his best not to breath loudly, or really at all, as the guard walked past, their footsteps loud on the carpet. He stared at the hole in the glass irritably. They should invent something to fix this, so they wouldn’t leave holes in the glass. He hoped the guard wouldn’t notice, but of course; he did. The guard gave a surprised cry and Altair felt his body twitch, urging him to run, his natural instinct to get as far the fuck away from the guard as possible. Training kept him still however as the guard radioed that they’d had a break in.

Lovely.

The guard however was stupid and left the hall to Altair, hurrying away as if Altair wasn’t there. He gave a soft breath of thanks once the guard was gone and rose slowly from behind the desk and went down the hall in the other direction, jogging till he came to a flight of stairs. The floor above was only reachable from this level, as all the offices along the outside were blocked out with walls.

“Hello beautiful,” he grinned as he reached the top of the stairs and out before him stretched rows upon rows of computer and server banks. Eagle Vision adjusted to the new darkness, the image becoming slightly grainy at the edges, washing out further. Humming he casually strolled down the stack of servers, all whirling softly, the room a balmy seventy degrees as the ventilation system sucked in air from the outside to cool the room.

The Templars thought they were stupid. Honestly it was the only reason they would do this. The server bank for Abstergo Tower was located damn near across town, in an unsuspecting office building. The commanders were going to have fucking kittens.

Altair found a terminal mounted into the wall and turned it on. After a second the screen it up and he narrowed his eyes before the night vision faded into more or less his normal vision. Once the terminal was operational he quickly clicked through several menus and found what he was looking for. He pulled out an empty data chip into one of the ports and copied a bunch of files. Then he copied other files from around the terminal, help draw off the trail. In went another data chip, as he pulled the other one our, and he uploaded all the files onto it into the system. The servers around him whirled, whined and then all the little lights, including the terminal shut off.

Chuckling he grabbed both data chips, tucked them away and left. Eagle Vision was cranked up on high as all the lights in the building had gone out. He stopped a moment and looked across the city. Abstergo Tower was shut down, except for their massive sign, which no longer bore the Abstergo sign, but now was a white background with a massive design of the Assassins in red, the Creed scrolled along the bottom in red text ‘Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.’ Time to get out. He walked casually to the stairwell on the floor and started down. Down, down, down he went and pushed open the emergency exit door. Usually an alarm would have sounded, but the entire building was dead.

“Thank you for that marvelous demonstration, Altair,” a voice chimed through the air and the night dissolved around him, replaced by the sleek white room of the training simulator. It flittered through another chameleon of looks, the panels seeming to ripple, and it once more looked like a class room. While it might have been a simulator, but it was also a classroom, there were ten other rooms just like it in the lower levels of the fortress, for the ten novice classes.

“Of course,” Altair said, and put his hands behind his back as he now stood before a class of thirteen year olds of both genders who were looking at him with awe, as well as one who looked like he was about to burst apart with excitement and pride. Altair gave him a slight smile, his son had every right to be proud Altair was his father.

Their teacher was standing behind the group of teenagers, “And of course the best part is that that was indeed a mission you performed.”

Altair chuckled, “Yes, I do not remember it being quite as easy however,” it was a gentle nudge and they both knew. In truth the Templars had had trained and armed guards stationed on the floor below the banks, and Altair had had to melt the hinges off the door to the floor above to even get in. He’d also killed, a lot. But they were Templars, he hadn’t cared. At this age however the novices were still spared from blood, hell most of them had only begun puberty. The Order was not so cruel as to inflict such gore onto children.

The instructor chuckled. “Indeed, now I was wondering if you could-

The door opened and everyone turned to look, a woman stood in the doorway, “Excuse me for the interruption Jackson,” they bowed their head at the instructor, “Master Altair, the Grand Master summons you,” she said looking right at him.

“Is it urgent?” he asked carefully.

“He said that whatever you might be doing, short of physical harm if you did not do so, was to be done later. Come,” she ordered.

“Tell him I’ll be right along, I do not wish to be rude,” he motioned to the teenagers in the class. She looked at them, back at him, nodded once, and then left. He looked at the instructor, “My apologies Jackson,” he said  sincerely.

“Think nothing of it brother,” Jackson waved away his concern.

“I wouldn’t be against you dragging me in here again, to the benefit of your students,” his eyes flicked to Darim for only a moment.

Jackson chuckled slightly, “I don’t doubt,” he agreed. “Class,” he said in an authoritative tone and they all stood up from their chairs.

“Safety and peace Master Altair,” they said in unison and bowed to him.

“Safety and peace novices,” he said with a slight wave and walked out the door. He walked down the slightly curved hallway to the end where he dropped off his harness, which was still around his waist. The instructor who tended the equipment just gave him a nod and he continued to the elevator banks.

—

The top of the fortress was lovely, with wide open windows that looked out upon the mountains and forest around them. The city was a purple array of towers to the east. Most of the fortress was underground, but the uppermost floors was above ground. He stopped at the station outside the Grand Master’s desk, “The Grand Master called for me,” he said, she looked him over quickly before nodding and telling him to go in.

The Grand Master was a man in his fifties, with slicked back, black hair and a large scar over his left eye leaving him blind. His family had held the seat of the Grand Master for over a century, something that didn’t usually happen. Normally the seat of the Grand Master was not passed on along blood lines, but the Auditore family had an especially strong line of genes that made them cuts above the rest. Farther back in their genes Altair shared a great grandmother with them, but the genetic line had diverged after that and while they shared some traits, they were not similar. So in effect he was related to Grand Master Mario, but not  _related_ to him exactly.

There was another man in the room as well and Altair felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. His eyes narrowed at Malik who glared right back at him. There was a mutual dislike between the two, and not even Altair was sure why. They’d been in the same class together growing up and while usually novices of the same class were close, more like siblings than even those they were genetic siblings with, it had not been so with him and Malik. They were both extremely skilled, and very competitive and what had been a friendly rivalry in their youth had expanded into something resembling animosity. It was probably petty and childish, they were both in their thirties for the God’s sake, but Malik could just get under his skin like no one else. Though to be fair Altair knew exactly which buttons to push to get Malik to react in any way he wanted, anger usually. Normally it would have shown compatibility but… he balked at the thought of any child of his sharing genes with the man. Thankfully the Order took notice of who wasn’t just compatibly genetically, but also who may or may not like who, they weren’t assholes about it.

“Ah, Altair,” Mario said, cheerfully, a broad smile on his face.

“Master,” he bowed his head and when Mario beckoned him to sit, he came around to the other chair in the room and sat next to Malik on the other side of the desk. Every sense was on alert with Malik so close, they were too similar, they clashed. Too many similar genes? That seemed stupid since Altair shared more DNA with the Mentor than the other Master Assassin. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting, my apologies,” he said once he was seated.

Mario waved off his apology, “Not long enough for it to be a concern Altair. Shandra told me you were down in the fifth class giving a demonstration,” Altair nodded. “I’m sure you both know the season is approaching,” he said, they nodded separately. 

The season was the time of year members of their Order could petition for children, or the higher ups of the Order decided that certain people would make better matches than others. Ever since the Collapse, when most of the higher standing western countries had fallen to their own civil wars and infighting that had erupted after the plague. It was called a plague, though it was no sickness that could be cured. It was said that before the Collapse you didn’t have to go to a Child’s Bank if you wanted to have a baby, women could just have them. In fact they had so many children that the population had swelled to the point of bursting. Then the ‘plague’ had come and fewer and fewer children started to be born till none were being born.

The world had torn itself apart when it became obvious there was nothing that could save them. No science or prayer could fix whatever had fucked up biology. It had taken till the world was growing old, and they realized they had to be something they could do, because there were no more young people, they were all old, or were dead. No God answered their prayer, but scientists had not been idle during the drought of youth and had been perfecting how to inseminate blank eggs with genes from two different parents. They came onto the scene, almost seventy years after the Collapse and showed off not just their technology, but also over a dozen children ranging from ages of five to fifteen. Not even those remaining members of the more devout sects of what remained of the religions could nay say them, because the fact stood that without this technology humanity would wipe itself off the face of the earth.

That was almost five hundred years ago now. The plague now a bad memory, but still few, or no, children were born of normal conception, and they continued to use science to populate. Child’s Banks were the places normal people could go to have a child, in the Order it was different, and often two parents were simply paired together without remark to their own interactions. The Order bred and raised Assassins, the cream of the crop and all their members were flawless as far as genetics went, with as little junk DNA as possible. Altair had two children like this, with two different other donors. He was in good standings with the both of them, but it had never been topic of affection between them. The Mentor and his advisors had told him to do, and he had done it. It was not an uncommon story as one might think and the season was when the Order… bred (though using such a word to explain it comes across more rude to the entire experience than not) it’s members and grew their numbers.

“Good,” Mario continued, “Well, it’s been decided, that you two will be participating this year,” there was a silence and Altair felt all the hair on his body stand up on end. Next to him the arms of Malik’s chair creaked as he gripped it. Usually being chosen was an honor, as only about twenty couples were chosen a year. But this didn’t sound like an honor and Altair waited for the shoe to drop. The silence lasted only long enough for Altair’s heart to beat a few times before Mario said, “together.”

“WHAT!”

“You can’t possibly expect-

“I refuse to share my genes with that-

“Mentor have you lost your mind?”

“Under what sort of good graces-

“Enough!” Mario bellowed, being the only one who’d remained sitting, as both he and Malik he jumped from their chairs and hand their hands on his desk. “Both of you, sit down,” he ordered. Altair was shaking slightly but he pushed back from the desk. Over thirty years of training had beaten him into the shape of obedience and he sat, Malik did so as well, looking just as pleased about the situation as him. “Now, are you going to act like the grown men and Masters you are or do I have to assign you some sort of humiliating punishment for causing such a scene?” he demanded. Neither of them answered, and simply adverted their eyes, they would behave.

“Good,” Mario’s brow smoothed out and he brushed something invisible, perhaps some wrinkles, off the front of his uniform. “Now than, you two have proven well that you have good material, Altair, Darim is the top of the fifth class, Malik, Tazim is shaping up to be one of the brightest boy we’ve seen in a long time.”

Malik lifted his hand, just slightly, a permission to speak. Mario nodded at him, “While I mean no disrespect sir, but I am not comfortable fathering a child with a man I hate,” and Altair glared at him and Malik gave him a scathing look out of the corner of his eye.

“I feel the same,” Altair said quickly before Mario could speak. Mario sent him a look that said ‘be quiet, you do not have permission to speak’, and he looked down again.

“Your feelings have been taken into consideration, we’re well aware of your childish animosity towards each other,” Malik opened his mouth but the Mentor sent him a hot look, shutting him up. “But you two both possess superior genes. Altair, you have all twelve modes of the Eagle Vision, something that hasn’t been seen since my own great grandfather, and Malik you’re one of our sharpest minds, our best support. It would be stupid to not see what would come of your union,” and Altair clenched the arms of his chair, grinding his teeth. He wanted to speak, but training kept him silent and obedient. “You both have two options, you can do this of your own will and go down to the Nursery to do as commanded. Or, we will sedate you. Your personal baggage is not of interest to the Order, we are interested in creating the best men and women to fight the Templars. Do I make myself clear?” he asked sharply.

“Yes sir,” Altair short of growled. There was nothing he nor Malik could do about this. They’d been given the ultimatum and come high or low waters the Order would be mixing these genes. Damn it all. Malik gave his own quiet agreement.

“Good,” Mario said firmly, “Both of you may leave, you have till the end of the month to go down to the Nursery, before the season starts.”

Altair stood with a jerk, “Yes sir,” he said again, Malik, who was even more irritant about the whole thing than him didn’t even say anything, he just nodded and left the office. Altair followed a few seconds after, to give Malik room. Behind him he heard Mario sigh tiredly and mutter a quiet ‘novices’ under his breath. Altair closed the door behind him.

—

Malik left the Nursery, with it’s soft pastel colors and cheerful decor, feeling more than a little defiled. The last time he’d been to the Nursery it had been under very different circumstances. For starters, he hadn’t hated the other half of the pairing he’d been told to make a child with. 

Jessabelle had been a nice young woman with a mind like a machine and while not a Master had unlocked seven modes of the Eagle Vision, Malik, despite his rank and age on her, had only unlocked four, and hadn’t changed since their joining. They’d gotten to know each other after being told they’d been chosen to be paired together, Malik had been surprised, he had never thought he’d get any children. The slots were very competitive and often the Order gave them to people who wanted them, or at least if they petitioned early enough. Malik would have been content without a child, passing on his genes didn’t mean as much to him as it did to others. But the Order had intervened and given him his partner in Jessabelle. He’d had some feelings for her, and had taken her to his bed… often, but she’d been sent on mission a few weeks before Tazim was born. She’d ended up killed in action and Malik had been shocked by his own broken heart. That had been the last time he’d given thought to the Nursery, and that had been nine years ago, now Tazim was in the second class, and had clearly taken after his mother, her more gentle nature, and mind like a machine. He’d already unlocked an Eagle Vision, rare for his age, but not unheard of.

Altair had unlocked three by the time they’d started their training as novices, though had told no one until. It brought his thoughts full circle, and why he felt like he’d just been… taken advantage of really. He knew that in normal society forcing someone to share genes was both illegal and considered rape. This however was not kinder society, this was the Brotherhood of Assassins. He’d had a chance to leave it when he’d been younger, he could have left and no one would have stopped him. But he’d stayed, like most did, and he was had to do what they told him to, those were the rules. Malik wouldn’t have been so apposed to the idea if it had been anyone but Altair, after all, he and Jessabelle had been forced into it, joining without choice. At least there was potential for romance there though, not like with Altair. Pompous asshole.

That was really the whole issue, that it was Altair. He wouldn’t have cared if it was anyone else. Literally it could have been anyone else. But because of who it was Malik felt like he’d just been defiled and felt more than a little disgusted in handing over genetic material to the doctor at the Nursery. He’d rather wipe this entire experience off his memory.

First though he wanted to take a shower.


	2. Delta Down

Malik turned away from his computer terminal and rubbed his eyes. Too long staring at a computer didn’t hurt, his third mode of Eagle Vision counteracted the strain a computer screen had on the eyes, but sometimes it was hard for this mode to fade. He looked up when his partner in crime thumped down into the chair next to him.

“Drink, you look like a bloody zombie,” Shaun informed him and put a cup of coffee down next to his keyboard.

“At least it isn’t that dirty piss water you drink,” Malik said, Shaun ignored the ribbing, they’d been working together long enough for the younger man to be used to Malik’s own brand of affection. The British red head was almost ten years his junior, but knew more than just about anything than anyone Malik had ever met. That being said he had only the most basic Eagle Vision, zoom, and the cyber sight.

“I miss anything while I was gone?” the red-head asked and sipped from his travel mug.

“Whole lot of nothing,” Malik said and leaned back in his chair. 

“Heh, figured. This is a pointless recon mission,” he groaned and pressed the heel of one hand to his eyes. “Honestly men of our caliber shouldn’t be here, this is a job for lesser experienced support. I mean, just last week I led a Master into a high security government center, and then back out again,” Shaun was always the best bitcher. That’s what Malik liked about him.

“I know Shaun,” Malik said and took a sip of his coffee. He did have to admit though, even if he was a tea drinking weenie he did know  _exactly_  how Malik took his coffee. “I was there,” it wasn’t like Shaun could work by himself. He was a good tech, but his limitation was all in his inability to see, a serious sore spot.

“Thank you for reminding me Malik, I only have two eyes and a fully functioning frontal lobe,” Shaun sniped right back.

“Liz still sick?” he asked mildly. Liz was Shaun’s two-year old with, who would on the outside be his wife, the genius tech Rebecca. She didn’t run support like him and Shaun, but instead was the Red Queen, the head core programmer who tracked their computer system and got to create new rooms for the novice and training simulator rooms. It was an awesome job, but had a lot of responsibilities. She had all four electrical Eagle Vision modes unlocked, plus three non support types, an impressive feat for someone in tech, to have more than three modes. It was why she was the Red Queen, and not just some run of the mill program admin or even a core programmer.

Shaun’s entire persona changed, “Yes,” he said, “the nurses at the Nursery say there’s nothing to worry about, just a cough…” he didn’t further air his worry. 

It had been a fight two years ago for the higher ups to even agree to Shaun and Rebecca’s union since while Shaun was brilliant, he had a weak immune system, some bad genes from their base in the European continent before they’d all migrated here after the Templars dug them out of hiding. Rebecca was also a star, the best there was in terms of tech, they had reservations about allowing the two to join. They’d denied the two for five years prior even, but when they’d thought to join Rebecca with someone else the entire upper brass had found themselves locked out of the computer system, and the Core room sealed up tighter than a drum. Rebecca had not been happy with anything they’d planned. It had been a nice reminder to everyone in the fortress that while the Mentor and the other high Masters were their leaders, that they were not powerless in their lives if they didn’t like how things were going. After that they’d let Rebecca and Shaun join, it had resulted in Liz, who’d picked up Shaun’s weaker immune system and everyone who knew the two knew they worried whenever she got sick since if anything happened to her they wouldn’t be able to try again. The Order would never sanction another child between them, and Shaun would probably be black listed (hell he probably already was), from ever getting to join with someone again.

“She’ll be fine,” Malik said kindly and patted the younger man on the shoulder. “Colds go around the Nursery all the time.”

“Yeah, but-

“Won’t do you any good to worry about it,” Malik said sternly.

“You’re right. You’re right,” and Shaun rubbed his face with a groan.

“She’s, thankfully, more of her mother than you, she’s too stubborn to stay sick,” he teased.

“Support, this is delta-four, do you copy?” a voice suddenly sounded in his ear.

“Delta-four this is support, we read you loud and clear, what seems to be the problem?” Malik turned back to his monitor and his Eagle Vision settled over his sight.

“What am I looking at support?” the Assassin’s voice trembled just a bit.

“We do not have visual delta-four, I repeat we do not have visual.”

“Shit,” a new voice came over comms. “Support this is delta-six.”

“I have you delta-six,” Shaun said as Malik tried to establish visual from four.

“Delta-four, turn on your camera.”

“It’s on,” four stammered.

“Shit,” Malik muttered, “Hold on delta-four, something must be interfering with the fe-

“Support, this is delta-three, I need a medevac; now! Two is down.”

Malik’s fingers traced across the screen, brining up vitals for the six Assassins they were guiding. Up till now it had been a boring task, mostly silence over the comms between them and delta. They were in the Rockies, looking for… something, Malik wasn’t sure what; none of them were. “Delta-three establish visual,” he ordered as he scanned the readout of two. “Everyone turn on your fucking cameras or so help me by the God I will tear you all a new ass when you report back to base.”

“Camera on,” he got a resounding response from three different voices.

“Support, I need that medevac,” three said.

“There is nothing wrong with delta-two, delta-three,” Malik said. He turned to Shaun, “Get a damn program admin down here, we need an interface,” he barked and Shaun leapt from his seat and was out of the room in a moment. “Delta squad, do you read me on all channels?” he asked, once more speaking to the field agents. He got four ‘I hear you support’. “Tell me what the hell is going on,” he said sharply.

“Support this is delta-five. I think… we were attacked.”

“You think?”

“One, two and now six are down.”

“We need a medevac,” three said, she sounded on the edge of hysterics. He looked up both her and two and understood, she and two had been joined this season. Probably under more understanding circumstances than his own. No time to think of that now though.

“Delta-three there is nothing wrong with delta-two, his vitals are fine, as are delta-one and delta-six. Delta-five, report, tell me what the fuck is going on. Why is delta-three saying delta-two needs a medevac?”

“He’s down, and not responding support,” five said, “We were nearing our outer perimeter destination when there were… some flashes of light, one and two went down. Another went out a few moments ago, six went down. We’re now holding behind cover.”

“Hold tight delta,” Malik said and muted his mic as the door was pushed open. A program admin followed in Shaun’s wake.

“Situation,” he asked, his skin tight suit looked slippery in the light of the screens. His eyes were maxed out as well as special caps placed over them to keep their moist when they were open for long periods of time, they left his eyes blank, white, and expressionless.

“Something’s jamming the visual link, and either I’m getting false reads on vitals for half my squad, or there’s something wrong with them,” Malik said. The program admin just nodded and moved towards a terminal that was mostly unused by him and Shaun. “Delta do you copy?” Malik asked.

“Delta-four I hear you support. There was another flash of light, three and five are down.”

“Remain calm delta-four. We have a program admin on site,” he said reassuringly as the program admin in question seemed to sink into the terminal. The terminal buzzed and he pulled out a dozen wires from a pop open compartment and in the span of a few seconds had connected them into ports along his neck spine in his suit. They didn’t ‘plug’ into his body, but snapped onto external ports that connected with implants all program admins had put in when they took up the title. Two more wires were connected to the underside of his wrist and the terminal dimmed.

“Support,” four said quietly.

“We’re here delta-four,” Malik said quickly.

“I’m getting pretty freaked right now, support.”

Malik and Shaun traded looks, “We need to get him out of there,” Shaun said, the connection between them and four muted, but only on their end.

“Not till we have visual. If the program admin can get it working we’ll stick around a few moments. If he can’t, we’ll pull him out.”

“The others?”

“There is nothing wrong with them,” Malik said firmly.

“Vital feedback is accurate,” the program admin suddenly said, forehead almost touching the terminal screen. The terminal whirled and flickered, though whatever the program was doing was beyond Malik, he was support and not tech.

“And visuals?” Malik asked.

“Coming online.”

“Delta-four you still there?” Malik asked.

“Y-yeah, I’m still here,” he said and both Malik and Shaun resumed their seats.

“Good, good. Your camera is turned on, right delta-four?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Admin, where are those damn visuals?” Shaun snapped.

“Coming,” the admin said, his voice bland, because he was deep in the circuitry, Malik had no idea what he was doing.

“What do you see delta-four?” Malik asked.

“I don’t even know support,” he actually whimpered.

“Admin!” Shaun yelled.

“Visuals online,” the admin said mechanically and six new screens blossomed around them. Malik shoved five aside and brought up delta-four’s.

“We have you delta-four, it’s going to be okay.”

“Losing link,” the admin sounded confused.

“I need you to give us a view delta-four, can you do that?”

“Are you going to get me out of here after I do?”

Shaun looked at him, aghast, because Assassins didn’t run. Usually fear was simply trained out of field operatives. “Yes, we are delta-four,” he said in Malik’s place. He left Malik to deal with the field operative as he called up an evac.

“Losing link,” the admin said again, sounding irritated now.

“You need to do it quickly delta-four, visuals are shaky.”

“Okay.”

“Give us a full panorama if you can,” he said. Delta-four’s camera bobbed as he nodded and slowly raised above his cover. Shaun next to him was quiet.

“What in the name of the God,” he breathed and Malik was just as stunned. Delta-four did a slow spin.

“Link lost,” the admin said a second before the screen cut out.

“Support?” delta-four asked.

Malik looked at Shaun, “Evac is on it’s way delta-four, get out of there and rendezvous with them.”

“Oh thank the God,” delta-four  practically sobbed and they heard him move.

“Visual link restored,” the admin said and abruptly the camera cut back in, showing the bobbing view of delta-four running before bursting out into daylight. The terminal whirled, “All systems are at adequate levels of operation,” he said and they heard the snapping as he unplugged.

“What was the problem?” Shaun asked the admin when the man turned to them.

“No idea,” his voice was normal again, not the strange monotone admins took when interfacing. “I have a data report on the situation, I’ll take it back to the Core, we’ll analyze what was interfering with the link.”

“Good,” Shaun said, Malik was talking to delta-four, about nothing really, just so the Assassin knew he was there. “Thank you admin,” he added.

“Mmhm, lets hope this doesn’t happen again,” the admin frowned, “Safety and peace brothers,” he said as he walked out.

“Safety and peace,” they called after him. Shaun turned back to his monitor and pulled up the other five cameras that had been going during the link connection. Most of it was nothing, just the ceiling.

“It’s days like this I’m glad I’m support,” Shaun said.

“Why do you say that?” Malik asked, zero-four’s vitals were now at normal levels and Malik felt comfortable leaving him alone to make it to the rendezvous point, four klicks away from his current position.

“Because, look at this,” Shaun grabbed the screen that showed a base readout for the other five members of delta. “All of them, perfectly fine,” and then he brought up zero-four’s video and scrolled through to one part. “But bloody  _look at them_ ,” he demanded. Malik frowned. They were all lying prone, on their backs and sides. Who was very obviously zero-three laying over zero-two, holding him close to her. “And you know the Mentor is going to send more of our brothers after them, to retrieve them.”

“You would just have us leave them there?” Malik demanded. “That how they do it in Europe Shaun?” Malik felt his temper rise.

Shaun’s lips became thin, but he neither took the bait, nor refuted it. Since the fall of the European fortress years ago it had been a sore spot for all the Assassins who’d been retrofitted into the two remaining ones, one in Asia, somewhere in the Chinese desert, and this one here in North America situated between two of the Great Lakes, and north of the capital of the largest nation on the continent, the Free Republic of the North, or the FRN. Shaun turned away from him.

“I’ll call this up the chain,” Malik said, not to be confrontational. Shaun nodded mutely and watched zero-four’s video feed. Malik got ahold of a Master quickly and relayed the situation about five downed field operatives as well as the interference to their video link. The most pressing matter to them though was several members of their members were strangely comatose and once zero-four was back in a closer bureau and debriefed they’d send in a retrieval unit.

A while later, after he and Shaun had shifted through all the data and had delta zero-four had been picked up in the Rockies Malik finally stood up and stretched. They’d been sitting a long time. “I need a drink,” Malik groaned.

“Or three,” Shaun agreed.

“Come down to the canteen with me?” he asked as they turned off their terminals.

“Can’t, me and Bec are going to go and see Liz and having a nice relaxing, romantic night,” Shaun smirked, “She’s even worse off than me, holed up in the Core all day and worrying her head off about Liz.”

“Ah,” Malik nodded in understanding as they left their comm room and headed towards the elevators to take them to the upper levels as the Core and comm rooms were some of the bottom-most floors.

“How’s your little one?” Shaun asked as Malik pressed the button to call the elevator.

“Tazim? He’s doing fine, they’re at the third level in his class.”

“Uhg,” Shaun groaned, “I hated third level.” Malik chuckled. “But I didn’t mean Tazim,” an elevator dinged open and they stepped to the side to enter the one next to the one in front of them, “Didn’t you get roped into this year’s season?”

Malik rolled his eyes almost violently, “Don’t remind me.”

Shaun blinked, surprised, Malik knew his reaction was not common, most people were overjoyed when they got to participate in the season. “I didn’t realize you were so petty,” Shaun said as the door closed.

“Coming from you that’s a scream Shauny,” Malik sent him a bland look.

“So your kid’s half of someone you hate, big deal. Still your kid. Personally, I’d love to know Liz was going to get a sibling. You even tell Tazim he’s going to be a brother?”

Malik didn’t answer right away, “Shaun, how would you feel if Rebecca hadn’t put her foot down and the Order had made her join with someone else?”

“Well, I’d probably be pissed. But I know Becca would be happy, she loves children, ya know?” he shrugged a little. “The guy they wanted to join her with was a weirdo anyway, brainiac, but that was it, five EVs, top IQ, one of the other core programmers. Nice guy honestly, he wasn’t exactly thrilled at the idea of joining with Bec though, she’s kinda like their mom, he was grateful it didn’t happen.”

“My situation suddenly seems a lot less weird,” Malik said.

“Exactly, so shut up, man up, and at least go down to the fucking Nursery you big yellow git. Not like he’s going to be staking the place out to make you feel uncomfortable,” and Malik was surprised when the elevator dinged, they were too low for the residential areas, where he and Shaun were going.

“Hey!” Malik yelled when Shaun suddenly shoved him out of the elevator.

“You’ll thank me for this,” Shaun said and the elevator doors closed before Malik could dart back in. He looked around to figure where the hell he’d been dumped. He frowned deeply realizing he was in the Nursery.

—

When the news came about almost an entire unit had gone missing the fortress started to buzz. The novices were kept out of the loop, as they usually were, they needed to focus on their training, Once the remaining Assassin had been debriefed and sent back to the fortress gears started to turn and like a sleeping wild animal the Order woke up, shook itself and prepared. Though no one was hurt the very fact that  _something_  had knocked out five full Assassins was enough to set everyone on edge.

Altair, along with eleven other Masters were being sent to clean up the mess and retrieve their fallen comrades. They left soon, but before that Altair had found himself down in the Nursery. It had been a month since the start of the season and all the AWCs were full. When not in use the AWCs were clear, and filled with a pale yellow liquid that kept them sterile during the year. However during the season they glass was frosted over, the normal transparent surface made opaque.

He stood in front of the AWC with the embryo that would be his new son or daughter in full uniform, clothes dark, tight and with a mottled camo pattern on them, and reinforced with a semi solid to resist bullets in key places while still allowing him great flexibility. It was a modern armor and when you put on the helmet sealed up tight with a breathing apparatus so that foreign contaminant couldn’t get in.

He frowned knowing that this could be the last time he ever saw this AWC. Before being sent on a mission he always visited his children, he’d already seen Sef and Darim and said goodbye and he’d see them again soon. That was always the fear that you wouldn’t come home on a mission, and most of the Masters he was going with had done the same as him and said goodbye to their children and/or partners. After all this was a dangerous mission and it had downed an entire squad of Assassins, Altair might not come back.

Altair took a deep breath. “If I don’t come home, Malik better not lie to you,” was all he said in the empty room. He rolled his eyes to himself thinking that. Of course he would. All the more reason to not get killed on this mission.

‘Alpha-one, where are you?’ his helmet suddenly spoke.

He put it on and walked out of the nursery, pressing a switch that sealed the helmet to the rest of the suit as he walked out. “I’m here,” he said into the radio and his visor came online. There were no ‘eye holes’, just an internal camera that projected an image onto the flat front of the helmet, it could also be dissolved into straight clear plastic if anything happened to the camera.

“Yeah but  _where_  are you? We’re leaving,” came support’s irritant’s voice. He didn’t know who was his support team and they didn’t know who he was. That was the point, they couldn’t let emotions cloud their judgement since a lot of field agents had partners in support.

“Nursery, I’ll be right up,” and the elevator dinged when he pressed the button and he stepped into it.

“Well hurry up, you’re making everyone hold on for you.”

Altair smirked to himself and pulled up the comm channel for the others he was working with. “Boys,” he called.

“A-one?”

“I’m running a little late. I had to check on my baby.”

“Support giving you a hard time?”

“What do you think?”

“Alpha-one this is not-

“Put a fucking sock in it support,” said one of his men, alpha-three. He was Alpha-one, head of this eleven man team and unlike support they all knew who each other were though during missions would only refer to each other by call sign. “Boy’s got a baby this season.”

“Does it sound like  _I give a shit_?” their support asked. “Transport-

“Your voice is so sweet to my ears support,” alpha-nine piped in, “What’s your name? When this is done I’m ganna find you and make sweet love to you,” and over the comm line everyone laughed since both nine and support were men. There wasn’t anything weird about two guys together, but sometimes support guys got the short end of the stick by being field agent’s ‘bitches’.

“Give me a fucking excuse alpha-nine. I will hang your ass on my wall.”

“Oh baby you’ll have to come to the canteen with me first,” and nine made a kissy noise into the comm link.

“Alpha-one,” another voice came over the comm link, even through the monotizing voice changer Altair could hear his accent. European of some kind though he couldn’t place it. “What’s you ETA?” he was a lot calmer than their other support who Altair could hear having a bitch fit with the rest of his squad.

“About forty seconds,” he said over the one way with the calm support as the elevator dinged. Then he opened comms up again, “Ladies!” he called.

“Go to hell, one,” ten called, a woman.

“Would you prefer I call you novices than?” he asked.

“One you better be in the hanger-

“Shut up support,” and he muted the channel, “We all ready?” he asked, totally down to business.

“We’re in transport waiting for you,” six said.

“Okay I’m there,” he said as he boarded the ramp onto the heli. His men (even if there were women there) were sitting in two rows of five on either side of the transport. “Who’s our fly boy?” he opened a new comm to their pilot.

“Call sign’s Hellhound. Hello Alpha-One, glad you could finally make it,” the pilot said sarcastically.

“Hey I’m already getting lip from support. I don’t it from you too,” he said. “We good to go?”

“One, support’s pissed you muted his channel,” two said with a giggle.

“Tell him I’ll flirt with him later,” and they all laughed. “Buckle up everyone, we’re ganna be away in just a minute,” and he walked to the front of the heli where the pilot was. He closed the comms for his squad save for six, his second, but kept Hellhound open. “So what’s our ET for liftoff Hellhound?” he asked, standing between the pilot and navigator seats.

“Soon as we get confirmation from support A-one,” Hellhound said.

“Who’s our Nav?” he added.

“Hellcat, reporting,” Hellcat just  _sounded_  like a spunky chick, and she was.

“Hellcat and Hellhound, what’s this bird called? Hell Carrier?”

“Yes, actually,” Hellhound said and he and Hellcat high fived, clearly enjoying their word play.

“Very funny. So, lift off?”

“Waiting on support. He’s currently bitching up a storm that you’ve muted him.”

“Oh bother,” Altair huffed a sigh and muted everyone else but support.

“You tell that shit for brains alpha-one to turn on his comm right now or I swear to the God I’m going to report him for insubordination. This is a serious situation and his shenanigans aren’t appropriate-

“Hello support.”

“Alpha-one, oh good. For a second I’d hoped you’d died and maybe we’d get a competent Master for our lead,” they growled through the voice changer.

“Awww, you’re a sweetie you know that?”

“Go to hell.”

“What’s the hold up? I thought this was an important mission. Now  _you’re_  the one keeping us grounded.”

“Have you run full specs?”

Altair rolled his eyes behind his helm, “Two through eleven,” he called over the open comms.

“Sir!” they responded in unison.

“Are your suits working properly?”

“Sir!”

“Weapons secure?”

“Sir!”

“Everyone buckled in?”

“Sir!”

“Did everyone remember to go to the bathroom? Cause we ain’t landing if you have to go potty boys and girls.”

There was some laughter over the comm, “We’re good sir,” six said.

“Good! Support we’ve done specs now stop being up my ass. You ain’t my partner and only he gets that privilege,” and everyone laughed again.

“Fuck you alpha-one.”

“Come over here and we’ll see what I can do,” Altair said sweetly.

“Uhg. I’m hoping for a transfer,” support grumbled.

“Love you too baby,” Altair teased. “Hellhoud?” he asked.

“Lift off in forty. You might wanna buckle in sir,” Hellhound said. Altair took off his weapons and stowed them under his seat before sitting down next to six and strapping himself in. “Hang onto your butts,” Hellhound announced and then the heli lurched into motion and was speeding out of the hanger, the sound of it’s massive belly roter amazingly quiet for it’s size. Light came from the window up front but the back had no windows. They were on their way to the Rockies.

He opened a private comm with six as he pushed all the others down, though they could reach him if they needed to. “Give me reads,” he said.

“Sending,” six said and they tapped the sides of their helmets together. The data jumped across Altair’s visor and he turned down the external camera so that his vision was mostly black and the data sprawled across it. He blinked through the read outs and the briefing, though he’d memorized most of it. “You worried?” six asked.

“Not in the slightest,” Altair said, leaning back in his seat. “It’ll be easy. Go in, retrieve, half go back with the deltas, the rest of us push forward.”

“What if what happened to them happens to us?” six asked.

“We’ll be fine, six,” and he gave six a comforting shake. “Support,” he called.

“Hello alpha-one,” said the calmer of the two. “You’ll have to forgive my partner, he’s a bit… aggravated today.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes.”

“You’re our only two boys?”

“We have a core programmer with us and two program admins with us in case visuals go down again,” the calm support said.

“Wow, a core?”

“Yep. They’re interfacing right now actually.”

“Shit,” and his skins crawled, core programmers and program admins freaked him out something fierce. They were all pale and spidery with their black skin tight cat suits and white capped eyes and when interfacing their got all weird and mechanical. “They aint messing around yet?”

“Not yet alpha-one. They’re running basic electrical diagnostics on your suits, making sure everything’s fine. They should be exiting after that and won’t be with you again until you hit the hot zone.”

“Roger,” Altair nodded. “You know the support who led Delta into this?”

“… Uh, we were.”

He motioned to his men, they all flipped on open comms. “You guys led them into this?”

“Yes.”

“What the hell were you thinking?”

“Hey, don’t get pissy with me. Everything was fine. It all went to shit in about a minute. This mission’s main objective is extraction, don’t forget. So no cowboy shit, and no heroics, got it?”

“Sure thing support,” and nine made a rude gesture support couldn’t see since the camera feed wasn’t online. The others laughed though Altair couldn’t hear them, they were muted. “Anything else we should know?”

“Everything you need to know was in your briefing, and that’s about as much as we know ourselves,” he said.

“Okay,” he opened a link to Hellhoud, “Pilot, what’s our ETA?”

“Five hours, sir,” Hellhound said.

“Great,” Altair muttered. “Okay kids,” he said to his squad, “we got five hours to kill. Lets not bring down the heli in our boredom,” and now he heard some of them laugh. Five hours. Lovely.

—

Hellhound put them down in a shallow valley. They were two klicks the hot zone and they’d make up that difference in less than an hour. Once they were all out of the heli they checked each other over, making sure weapon harnesses were put on correctly and they ran personal diagnostics. They were all set.

“Ready?” Altair called through comms.

“Sir!”

“Form up, we got a hike,” and they formed a column behind him and they set off at a brisk pace. “Keep the heli warm Hellhound, we won’t be long.”

“Should I keep your seat warm too, sir?”

“Yeah, that’d be great,” Altair replied, Hellhound chuckled and then they broke the connection.

The trek wasn’t too long, and full of rocks and foliage. They saw no animals. Then they entered the hot zone, and you knew it because their screens became bordered with red. “Alpha-one,” a smooth, cool, female tone spoke up. Altair shivered. Core programmer.

“That’s me.”

“I’m Serenity,” and he knew it was a call sign, there were no real names during missions.

“What can I do for you Serenity?”

“I’m going to ride along with you if that’s okay?”

“Sure, knock yourself out.”

“Thank you. My program admins are riding along with alpha-six and alpha-ten, so you know.”

“Okay,” he nodded a little. “You know what sort of shit we’re going into Serenity?”

“We’ve been reviewing both the data and the cameras from the fallen deltas. They’ve been moved since their mission, we’re not sure how or why or in what configuration. But they all still seem healthy enough.”

“Well that’s good.”

“We’re approaching,” and a map was suddenly overlaid Altair’s vision. Had he been any less trained he would have jumped, as it was he barely flinched in surprise.

“Warn a guy next time you want to hijack his HUD,” he said.

“Apologies. It is simply easier,” she said. “This is the route they took,” and a green line appeared on the top down map. A collection of blue dots was them. “I suggest an alternative route,” and a yellow line appeared. Altair held up his fist as he came to a stop.

“Six,” he called through comms.

Six came forward. Altair grabbed him by the shoulder and bumped their helmets together, transferring the data on his screen to six’s screen. “We’re taking the yellow, pass it on to the others,” he said. Six nodded and Altair let him go. As a second six had an easy transfer interface to get information from Altair to the rest of their squad quickly. The bump only worked between firsts and seconds, and seconds had a mass transfer program to the rest of the squad. “Everyone got it?” Altair asked.

“Sir!”

“All right, lets move out. I wanna get this done before dark,” and they set out again.

Gradually the foliage vanished and they followed the yellow path Serenity had suggested, up the side of the mountain. They stopped to rest for a few minutes when they were about to enter what was being referred to as the ‘black zone’ because video feed back to support was cut off.

“All of you be careful,” support chimed in as they rested up before heading out. 

“This is why they sent us in,” Altair said.

“We don’t fuck up like delta,” four said smartly.

“We don’t know what you’re up against. Be careful,” support stressed.

“Sure, if it makes you feel better.”

“I said no heroics,” said the support with an accent.

“Support, we’re  _Alpha_ ,” seven said and everyone could hear the roll in his eyes, “cream of the cream of the crop, you ain’t gotta tell  _us_.”

“Well you have a shit for brains one,” said the irritated support.

“There is a reason I’m one you know,” Altair now rolled his eyes. “And it’s not just because I can put up with lippy, know it all, support boys on their man periods. Now unless either of you idiots have anything  _important_  to add we’re going into radio silence,” and he switched off his comms all the way. He knew in a pinch Serenity could turn them back on, but for now they were running silent.

They arrived at the cut tunnel Delta had gone down. The rock wasn’t smooth, but human hands had definitely cut into it. Altair’s eyes faded into night vision as they entered the cave, his visor fading to clear instead of matte black. Those with that mode of EV did so as well, others took heat or simply switched on external night. But they were Alpha, most of them had one of those. He thought only eight and three didn’t, but that was okay as they made up for it in other ways.

The world was green and gray and slightly foggy at the edges as the EV worked best at the center of the eyes but didn’t work so well towards the edges so while helpful both heat and night vision made you partially blind in the periphery. The tunnel wasn’t anything impressive, rough cut rock in one direction; straight. Their red border turned yellow as they walked, they entered the black zone. Altair motioned and over the external mics that fed to the helmet so he could hear noises outside his helmet he heard the soft scrape of weapons being drawn. Altair’s preferred weapon was the hidden blade and with a flick of his hand the slightly curved blade slid out against the outside of his hand. They continued to walk, but were now ready if whatever attacked Delta attacked them.

Then at about five hundred feet in he saw it, five mounds, lined up next to each other in a row across the tunnel; Delta. He quickly went next to them, beckoning eleven, and six over as the others spread out around them, facing both directions. They crouched next to him. Eleven, their medic, quickly looked them over as best he could without removing their helmets. They were covered in blankets and looked totally normal. He signed to Altair in quick code that they were not only breathing, but seemed to be in fine shape. Altair nodded and gave a short blast of air through his external speakers to get everyone’s attention. “Two through five plus seven and eleven, you’re going back to the Hell Carrier with delta. Six, eight, nine, ten, you’re with me,” he spoke very softly as he stood up.

Alpha gave, silent, affirmative signs and those he’d ordered went to delta and picked them up in a fireman carry style. They gave him one last sign before setting off back towards the entrance with their cargo. Altair motioned to the rest of them and they started deeper down the tunnel.

“Alpha-one,” suddenly support broke radio silence, “confirm you aren’t down.”

“Still here. Two through five, seven and eleven are on their way back to the heli. I have six, and eight through ten with me. We’re all fine,” and then he cut off the comm again.

There wasn’t a real change in the tunnel for another hundred feet. “One,” Serenity’s voice suddenly came online. He grunted. “I’m detecting seismic activity,” she said.

“What sort?” he asked, stopping his men.

“I’m not sure. If you could get closer to one of the walls I could use your suit sensors to gain more data,” he went and leaned against the wall for her, motioning to his helm that his tag along was asking him of this. The others formed around him, facing outward.

“So? What’s it look like Serenity?” he asked.

“High seismic activity. Coming towards you at an increasing speed and violence.”

“So what? Earthquake?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

They all jolted when the tunnel suddenly shuddered. They braced themselves. Nothing happened. They waited. “Cave in,” she said softly.

“Where?”

The tunnel shook again and there was a sound of cracking stone. “Over you.”

“Run,” Altair said urgently over comms. “Cave in.” Alpha took off at a dead run. Altair made sure the others were in front of him before following. The tunnel shook harder, but nothing fell. Nine stumbled at a  _massive_  crack and Altair grabbed him, throwing him forward before the ceiling gave out, nearly on top of him. Rocks smashed into Altair’d helmet and he went down, his screen going black.


	3. Alpha-Twelve

“-e. Alpha-one respond. Alpha-one please respond. For fucks sake you better not be dead. I _am not_ reporting you dead to the Mentor. Alpha-one respond right _now_.”

Altair blinked awake in a daze. His head was spinning and he was seriously disorientated. His screen was black and dead, but he could hear support yelling at him through the comm.

“Alpha-one, respond,” they were saying. Altair was still trying to get his barrings, not an easy thing to do when you couldn’t see. He reached up to his helm and manually restarted it via knob that was flush with the rest of the helm on his jaw. He twisted it and his screen flickered. He had no external camera and most of his everything else wasn’t working properly either. “Alpha-one-

“God shut up support,” Altair groaned.

“Oh good, you’re alive,” he honestly sounded relieved.

“Yes, just… give me a second,” and he grunted, still laying on his back. He got his visor to clear to transparent and that was good. He blinked a few times and night vision kicked as well as a few small, low level, lights on his suit to help him see in said night vision.

His head cocked to the side at what he was seeing. Every rational thought told him he shouldn’t be seeing what he was seeing. He shouldn’t. But his eyes weren’t lying to him. There… was a kid, standing over him. He looked about ten or eleven, with pale skin, his head was shaved and he was looking at Altair with Eagle Eyes, gold and yellow of someone with Eagle Vision. He was wearing a long sleeved white shirt and white pants and just… staring at him.

“The fuck?” he asked aloud though the kid couldn’t hear him. The kid cocked his head back at Altair, like a bird would. It was weird. He checked if his external speakers still worked, they did, and he turned them on. “Hey kid,” he said. They didn’t seem startled by him.

“Alpha-one-

“Not now support,” and Altair got to his feet. He made sure nothing was broken. He was fine, his vizor had a crack in it though, probably from a rock. Still the helmet did what it was supposed to do, take the beating instead of Altair’s head. He turned back to the kid, meeting his Eagle Eyes with his own. He crouched in front of him, “Hey,” he said, “What’s your name?” The boy didn’t answer. “C’mon, I’m not gonna bite, what’s your name?”

After a moment the boy said, “Desmond.”

“I’m Alpha-One.”

“That’s a funny name,” Desmond said with a grin.

“Yeah it is isn’t it? It’s not my real name though.”

“What’s your real name?”

He muted support fully, “Altair. You can’t tell anyone right now though.”

“Why?”

“It’s a secret,” he said and crossed his hands on his knees. “Now, I’m Alpha-one, or one, or A-one. Got it?” Desmond nodded. “What are you doing down here?”

“I should ask you that. What are you doing here?”

“Looking for some people.”

“Did you find them?”

“Yes. And you?”

“I live here,” Desmond said and rubbed his ear. “Or I did.”

“You did?” the fuck?

“I don’t want to anymore. I wanna go with you,” he said.

Altair looked around him, before him was the tunnel, behind was the rock. “Well I dunno if you’ve noticed Desmond, but I don’t think we can go the way I came. Unless you know another way?” Desmond nodded. “You’ll show me?”

“Yeah,” he held out his hand. Altair took it. Desmond led him away from the rubble. 

Altair switched off the external speakers. “Support, this is alpha-one, do you read?”

“Don’t _do_ that alpha-one,” the irritated one huffed.

“So not in the mood for the mom treatment support. Be useful, give me data,” he ordered seriously as the little boy led him down the tunnel. “The others?”

“Fine, they’ve left the hot zone, on the way to the Hell Carrier. Where are you?”

“On the other side of the rubble. I… have a guide.”

“A what?” Altair explained the child. “What the fuck?”

“That’s sort of what I said,” and then they took a path off the main tunnel. This corridor was a lot more narrow, barely wider than Altair’s shoulders, but very high and when Altair looked up he couldn’t see beyond maybe twenty feet or so. He got the impression it was _a lot_ taller though. It also curved slightly. Desmond didn’t let go of his hand, though he had it twisted so it was on his shoulder now so it didn’t scrape against the wall. “Support?” he answer and when he looked down he realized he was blind, his vizor having blacked out again. It did that when it lost power. He didn’t panic and he didn’t remove his helmet to see, as he could still feel Desmond’s hand curled around his fingers, and his hand on the boy’s shoulder. So he just kept walking as they followed the curve of the corridor.

All at once his helmet started working again about ten minutes later. “-pha-one, do you read?”

“I read you,” he said and cleared his visor. They’d left the narrow corridor and were in a wider one that looked identical to the one they’d entered through. 

“What the hell was that?”

“No clue support. I’m just following my guide.”

“You trust this kid?”

“You have a _better_ idea? Cause I’m all ears. Where’s Serenity?”

“I’m here one,” she said. “You went through a dead zone. All communications and electronics died. We couldn’t hear or see your data. We thought something had happened.”

“I’m fine,” he assured them. He turned on the external speakers, muting himself. “Hey Desmond, we almost out?” The boy turned back and looked at him with his golden eyes. He nodded. “Great,” Altair said and turned them off again opening his line with support, “He says we’re almost out. What do my reads look like?”

“Not good, I can tell you that,” support said. “As it is half of your readings are offline and we see a fracture on your helm. I assume falling rocks?”

“Yep. My camera’s also busted.”

“A lot of stuff looks busted,” support said.

“I can’t do it from here, but can I get patched through to the others?”

“I’m afraid not,” Serenity said. “As it is only through my intervention are we even able to talk with you. Your helmet is significantly damaged. Are any systems on it operational?”

“Mics, speakers, this comm, the vizor opacity, a few read outs like temperature and CO2 meters. Most of my HUD is offline though and I can’t connect comms with the rest of Alpha, or the Hell Carrier.”

“I see. Tell me if you see this,” she said and something pinged on his HUD.

“A dot?”

“No,” she said. “This?”

“More dots.”

“One?” and he was jerked out of his conversation with Serenity for Desmond calling him.

“Yeah?” he asked, turning down support and Serenity as the externals switched on. “What is it Desmond?”

“Down there?” and he pointed around a corner. Altair turned and was blinded by the sharp light coming from the end of the tunnel. Outside.

“Great, lets go.”

“Uh…”

“What?”

Desmond looked down and Altair followed his gaze. Desmond wasn’t wearing any shoes and his feet were not just dirty but also bruised and looked bloody. “It hurts,” Desmond said with a frown.

“Shit,” and without asking or thinking scooped Desmond up. The kid was paper light, as far as an eleven year old could be at least. He was skinny and hadn’t quite hit his growth spurt yet so Altair could still hold him. He lifted one of his feet up to look, there were small wounds in the bottom of his feet from sharp rocks and were bleeding a little. “Why didn’t you say anything?” he demanded. Desmond just shrugged. “All right, c’mon kid,” and he started towards the light, turning down his eyes so he wasn’t blinded by the intense light. Desmond wrapped his arms around Altair’s neck and kept quiet.

“Support,” he said.

“Got you.”

“What’s Alpha’s ETA to the Hell Carrier?”

“They’re about a klick from it.”

“I’m ganna need a closer evac. Tell Hellhound half a klick from the hot zone, I’m about to hit daylight. Send up smoke when he’s landed.”

“What’s the situation?”

“I have wounded.”

“Roger that, we’re relaying to Hellhound now,” and it went silent for a bit. “Hellhound is taking off, the rest of Alpha has been informed. Eleven says you’re ‘an ass for making them double back’.”

“Tell him to kiss it and maybe I’ll feel some remorse.” Support chuckled.

They hit daylight, Desmond whimpered a moment and pressed his face into Altair’s shoulder. Too much light? Altair had his eyes dialed down already and his vizor dimmed to help combat the light. He started down the mountain, Desmond in his arms and a minute or so later he saw a thick red smoke. Hellhound. He headed towards it.

“Everyone’s at the Hell Carrier, alpha-one,” support inform him.

“Good, almost there,” he said. “What’s the situation? Serenity can you please try and patch me through?”

“I’ve been trying,” she said.

“They’ve got delta strapped down, eleven has them on an IV drip.”

“Okay, make sure everyone’s sealed in their suits, including the deltas. I have a foreign body and I don’t know if they have any contaminants. Hellhound and Hellcat should seal the pilot’s compartment.”

“Relaying.”

“Also tell eleven to prepare to treat small wounds.”

“Relaying.”

Then he saw the Hell Carrier, sitting in a clearing like a big, fat, beetle, red smoke swirling around above it. Its underbelly turbine was quiet. “What’s that?” Desmond asked, pointing.

“A heli,” he said.

“What’s a heli?”

“A flying machine,” Altair said. “Drop the ramp,” Altair said to support. The back of the heli opened and the ramp dropped. Altair boarded with Desmond. His men were seated, waiting, and he saw the deltas strapped up top to pull down stretchers. “Hey kids, miss me?” he asked.

“You look like hell, one,” three said.

“Thanks,” he huffed. “Eleven I got you a patient,” and he walked over to where eleven was checking on a delta they’d strapped to the floor. Eleven looked up and though Altair couldn’t see his face he read surprise. “Feet are bleeding, rocks, dirt.”

“Where the hell did you find a kid one?” eleven asked.

“He found me,” and Altair sat in his seat. “Someone tell Hellhound to get us the fuck out of here,” he added and buckled in. Six nodded and a moment later the ramp was being drawn back and the rear door sealed. The heli rumbled as the bottom turbine started to whirl. Eleven sat across from Altair, shoving eight out of the way and eight got re-situated just as the heli lurched upwards at speed. He held onto Desmond who did the same to him and once they were cruising eleven unbuckled and grabbed his kit, kneeling in front of Altair.

“What’s his name?” four asked.

“Later,” Altair said. “For now everyone be nice to alpha-twelve,” and his men laughed. Desmond smiled at them not scared at all. Weird kid, but whatever.

“So where did you find A-twelve?” seven asked.

“On the other side of the rubble,” and Desmond winced when eleven cleaned his feet of blood and debris. “He was there when I came to.”

“Damn,” seven said. “What were you doing there kid?” he asked.

“I lived there,” he said.

There was a silence, “Excuse me?”

“I lived there,” he said said. “Ow,” he added to eleven.

“Sorry. Running around without shoes on was a stupid idea though,” eleven huffed.

“So what’s in there? How do you live in there?” Desmond didn’t answer. “Oi, twelve, asked you a question,” seven said.

“I don’t have to tell you,” Desmond said.

“Ooooh, seven you just got told,” nine said.

“Shut up nine. I will gut you like a fish.”

“Hey, calm down,” Altair interrupted. “Where we landing? Home, or Colorado?”

“Colorado,” six said. “The bureau’s expecting us. They’ve got a full medical team ready when we land.”

“Perfect,” Altair nodded. So that was like an hour and a half flight.

“Stop moving,” eleven said to Desmond.

“It hurts though,” he whined.

“It’ll hurt more if you keep moving,” eleven said sternly. “God one where’d you find such a wriggly kid?”

“I dunno he’s doing pretty fine on this level,” Altair’s smirk was visible behind his clear vizor.

“Oh shut up,” eleven grumbled.

—

They landed in Colorado around the time it was getting dark. In the past, before the Collapse, Colorado had been part of the United States, but Rebuilt Colorado was now a free country known as the Triad States of Colorado and encompassed a sizable portion of the south west of the northern continent. It was bordered against the Republic of California which owned the western coast from the Aztec off shot peninsula all the way up to what had once been the middle of British Columbia and the Free State of Utah which was a no fly zone after they started burning ‘witches’ two years ago. On it’s other side was Texas which controlled all the rest of the territory that Colorado, California, the Aztec Empire, the US and the FRN didn’t hold. As the FRN controlled most of the northern continent of America and the US the old southern states there wasn’t much left for Texas.

The capital of Colorado was little better than a cesspool and in truth Colorado was a very poor country currently going through a civil war and a whole slew of revolts and coups had been going on for decades now. California just tried to stay out of the way, Utah didn’t care and Texas  and the FRN were trying to smooth things over with only so much success. Europe wanted nothing to do the Americas and was letting Colorado burn itself out. Some people said that eventually the FRN or Texas would annex it and it’d just be another province. Coloradans didn’t like the sound of that and were fighting against that which meant fighting each other just furthering their strife.

The heli landed on the top of one a low building long enough for everyone to get out. Altair still carried Desmond in his arms as they left the heli, the others carrying the deltas. As soon as they’d disembarked the heli took off again. A heli in this city was quickly shot down or destroyed on the ground and the Hell Carrier shot up into the sky until it was less than a dot before turning east towards the closer Texan border.

They went down into the bureau, which was clean, but not too clean to not stand out, and the bureau leader was there waiting for them. He wore a respirator. “Alpha-one I presume?” he asked Altair.

“Sir,” he saluted as best he could holding Desmond. 

“We have a containment area for the boy till we know he’s not carrying any diseases or contaminants,” Altair nodded. “Sandy, show the rest of Alpha where they can put the Deltas.”

“Of course, sir,” Sandy was also wearing a respirator, her black hair tired back into a tail and either it was dyed or someone had a really awful sense of humor. The rest of his squad followed Sandy while Altair followed the bureau leader. He was led downstairs and down a hall to a room with a plastic tent set up in it.

“You can put him in there.”

Altair nodded and opened the flap of the tent. Inside was a bed and a table as well as a machine that cycled and filtered the air. He put Desmond on the bed, but Desmond didn’t let go. “Hey, I need to go.”

“I don’t want you to,” Desmond said.

“It’ll be fine twelve,” he said gently, over the past hour and a half he’d endeared himself to the rest of the squad to the point that if one was ever added to their number they’d _insist_ on calling them thirteen. “They need to make sure you’re healthy.”

“I am though.”

“And that you’re not sick.”

“I’m not.”

“And that you won’t give _us_ anything.”

Desmond blinked at him, “I’m supposed to be out here. I’m not allowed to make you sick,” and that was just confusing. What did that even mean? “I don’t want to stay in here. I want to be outside. That’s why I left. I want to be outside,” he whined.

“If you’re fine it shouldn’t take long. Just relax. I’ll see you soon,” and he tugged Desmond’s hands off him.

“Yeah but-

“Twelve,” Altair said sternly, “you’re part of my squad right?”

“Right,” he nodded slowly.

“Well I’m one, meaning what I say goes. Alpha listens to me, and if you wanna be part of Alpha you need to too. Got it?”

“Yes one,” he said, pouted.

“Good. It shouldn’t take long,” and he left, sealing the tent after him. “Good to go, sir,” he told the bureau leader.

—

Eleven, who’s real name was Diyari, was looking at him. He was stripped down to his skivvies as Diyari poked and prodded him showing his patience of a brick wall as his medic made sure he was fine. The medical team was busy with the Deltas and of Alpha only Altair had suffered any ill from the cave in. His vizor had been cracked worse than he thought Diyari thought maybe he had a minor concussion. Until he was sure no sleeping for Altair.

“I feel fine, Diyari,” Altair sighed at him for not the first time.

“This is my job and my duty to say if you’re fit or not.”

“Yes, mom,” Altair huffed.

Diyari chuckled, “I have it under good authority you actually had two of those.”

“Go to hell, my genetics are no business of yours,” he informed Diyari smartly. He was full of shit anyway, he had opposite parents. Diyari just chuckled.

“Okay one final test, make sure you didn’t breathe anything that interfered with the EV,” since the Templars had developed a gas that did so. “Classic,” and Altair’s vision washed out and he looked at Diyari, all golden eyed.

“You’re blue,” he said.

“Zoom,” and the gray left and he zoomed into Diyari’s face to the point he could actually see Diyari’s nose hairs, gross. He gave an affirmative. “Hear this,” and he blew on a dog whistle. Altair dialed his ears up and after a few seconds heard it, another affirmative. Diyari pulled out a heart rate monitor, “You’re heart rate is fifty three,” Diyari said, “bring it up to a flat sixty,” and this was always one of the weird versions of EV that wasn’t connected to a sense, but rather actually controlled a bodily function. It was helpful when the enemy had people or things on hand that could hear your heart rate though. It always took him a few seconds, since he didn’t use it much, but he made his heart rate spike just sitting there. “Sixty five, dial it back,” Altair took another few seconds, “Okay, you can put it to normal,” and he removed the heart monitor.

“Isn’t four good enough?”

“For anyone else? Yeah, four’s good enough. But Mr. Alpha-One has all modes, we need to test at least half,” and Altair groaned. “Three more, you’ll live.” Diyari went and switched off the lights, “Night vision,” he ordered and Altair’s eyes blazed golden, his pupil reflecting trace amounts of light “How many fingers am I holding up?” and he held up one, Altair told him one. “And heat too,” after a moment his pupil glowed faintly red, “Fingers?”

“One up your ass.”

“Altair just humor me.”

“Three,” he grumbled.

“Okay, now close you’re eyes, we’re doing the twelfth mode.”

“Uhg, I hate this one,” it was disorientating. But he closed his eyes and turned his ears up. They wouldn’t hear the dog whistle, but it was echolocation. He tapped his finger on the table to give him a constant feed back. A picture of the room formed in his mind’s eye, as did Diyari, moving towards him. Altair ducked when Diyari threw a punch.

“Good,” and Altair opened his eyes, the room didn’t look exactly like his ears told him it looked and he had a weird moment of dislocation. “That was seven, you’re fine,” Diyari said.

“So can I put my clothes on now?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Great, I know how much you loved ogling me Diyari, but I got standards.”

“Fuck you One,” Diyari said.

“If only you were so lucky,” and Altair winked at him, Diyari rolled his eyes and Altair hopped off the table and grabbed his clothes which were folded up neatly next to him. “I have a concussion?” he added.

“It would have interfered with part of your EV,” he said, “usually the Classic. So no, you don’t.”

“Great,” and Altair pulled on his white shirt and black camo pants. “How pissed is command I fucked up the helm?”

“They understand it was an extraneous situation.”

“You love big words, don’t you Diyari.”

“Almost as much as you love big dick-

“Oh… oh that was low,” Altair informed him, not even mad. “I should make you run laps for that,” he was pulling on his socks and shoes now.

“Yeah but you won’t.”

“You’re so sure. Why not?”

“Cause I’m too pretty.”

Altair snorted, “Sure thing pretty boy. Now lets go find the others, and maybe a drink yeah?”

“Sounds good to me, sir,” Diyari nodded as Altair finished tying his black boots and they left the room.

—

The main bureau in Colorado was above ground. It was also in a not so great district. But that was good, it meant it was out of the way and the Templars probably didn’t know it was here. Colorado was a high traffic area for the Ever War because of the political strife in the country. The Assassins mainly made sure that the Templars just stayed _out_ of the way so that whatever _did_ happen in Colorado was because of Colorado and _not_ because of Templar agenda. A lot of missions went on in Colorado, both in New Denver, and here in Marcusville, the capital. 

Most of Altair’s missions were in Colorado, and some in Utah before the entire NCC, the Northern Continent Conglomerate, had basically shut down its borders. Nothing went into or came out of Utah from North America, and very little came or went from other continents. That had been two years ago after the ‘witch trials’, a series of really disturbing trials where women who were thought to be both fertile and pregnant and were burned on stakes for being ‘witches’.

It had seriously freaked the NCC and most of the world out that Utah thought to _burn_ fertile women when they basically didn’t exist. Especially not in the number the witches were, which was a dozen in a hundred miles. The Order had managed to save two before their trials and they currently lived in northern California. As it turned out neither of the woman they’d saved were fertile, and none of the woman burned had been either. Utah was just slightly insane. There were now no missions to Utah, as either there were no Templars there, or all Templars there. Either way it was better to just _stay_ _out_ of Utah for a while.

The bureau was home to a lot of their men. For all the fact that they only grew by less than two dozen every year or so the Order had a lot of men, for though while the best were bred they also let in outsiders. Most of the outsiders worked in the bureaus, field agents were almost exclusively Command stock with _very_ few exceptions as you had to have EV to be a field agent and only bred Assassins had EV. Not to mention that since the fall of the European base they’d seen a rise in numbers as most had relocated here, as China was mostly silent and they hadn’t heard from Australia in so long most people assumed it had been destroyed without them knowing. But then Australia in general had been silent for a long time to the rest of the world, not many people knew what was going on in there.

Bureaus housed everything you could need. There was a cantina, a med bay, interfacing terminals, a gym, places to sleep, and more. Altair was worried about the cantina, cause he was both starving, and needed a drink; preferably not in that order.

The rest of Alpha was already down there, dressed exactly like Altair, white Ts tucked into black pants, they wore normal clothes when not working, but since they were technically _still_ working they were in relaxed uniform. “Hey kids,” Altair called.

“One!” they cried as he sat down with them, Diyari took a seat next to his partner on the other side of the table. They were all crammed around one table with a _giant_ plate of nachos and what looked like tequila.

“Someone get me a drink,” Altair said tiredly.

“You got it old man,” Sarah teased and poured him a shot of tequila.

“Oh hush you,” he said since his entire squad were in their twenties, except for him and his second, Munahid, who were in their thirties. “This old man,” he knocked back the shot, “can still drink you under the table,” and they laughed. “And really? Nachos? You guys are classless.”

“Well you weren’t around to tell us to eat right dad,” Jari chimed in, Diyari now in his lap.

“Well, children, if you had to get nachos I am at least going to assume you didn’t get cheap shit.”

“No, sir,” Sarah chuckled.

“Good, so pass them over before they’re all gone. I know you all have bottomless stomachs,” and someone shoved the platter at him and handed him a plate, pouring him another shot of tequila. He put nachos on his plate, then shot the tequila. “Uhg, that is vile,” he said making a face. His squad laughed at him.

“So you all spic and span?” Munahid asked.

“Yep, doc gave me a clean bill of health so even roughed up I could still kick all your asses,” Altair declared.

“Well I wouldn’t go _that_ far,” Diyari said. “I’d suggest only kicking half our asses so you don’t throw out your hip or something.”

Altair pointed at Diyari, “And you’re first,” he threatened teasingly, they laughed. “Any news on twelve?” he asked, nachos going into mouth.

“Apparently doing some blood work,” Sarah said with a shrug.

“You going to tell us his name now?” Ehan asked, as always serious.

“Dishmun,” he said, mouth full of food.

“What?” 

Altair swallowed, “Desmond; the Amazing Boy in the Mountain,” he said.

“Huh-

“I like twelve better,” Sally piped up. “He can’t be more than twelve anyway,” she giggled and her sister rolled her eyes at her.

“Who’s doing our debrief?” Altair asked, keeping on track of work until this shit was over.

“Sandy, in about two hours, give the medical team time to figure out what happened to Delta, see if they can wake them up, and if there is anything to worry about with twe-Desmond,” Munahid said.

“Good. Time to eat and get ready for a nap,” Altair said, meaning a nap during debrief, though he wouldn’t, the others still enjoyed the joke. Someone gave Altair another shot of tequila, he shot it but bitched about, and then took another shot anyway.

—

Altair left the debrief only slightly irritated. It was a lot less stupid than other debriefs he’d had. This one mainly went over what Altair had done, the cave in, Desmond (who no one knew the name of except him and Alpha and they just liked calling him twelve), and Delta who were starting to wake up. Desmond kept saying he wanted to see Altair. He was being _insistent_ upon it as well and kept bothering the techs about ‘when he was going to see Altair again?’ He was also being difficult and speaking in some other language to the techs when they asked him questions, except to ask about Altair.

So basically Altair was a mother duck and it was like Desmond had imprinted. Lovely.

He headed up to where they were holding Desmond and the techs looked _very_ glad to see him. He went up to the plastic tent Desmond was in and Desmond jumped off the bed and literally bounced up to the clear wall and jumped up and down in front of it as Altair stood there, looking down at him. “What’re you doing?” he asked.

“You’re here!” Desmond said gleefully.

“Yes. I am. Why aren’t you behaving for the techs?”

“Because they’re stooooopid,” he said.

Altair rolled his eyes, “You need to do what they say.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because _whyyy_?” and Desmond was acting like a five year old and not a ten year old like he was.

“Because the sooner you do the sooner you can get out of there.”

“They keep poking me with needles. Or they’re trying,” and he pushed up the sleeve of his arm and showing off a series of small, angry, red, dots on the inside of his elbow.

Altair rose his brows, “What are you idiots doing?” he asked them.

“Trying to take a blood sample,” they said.

“You fucking idiots. He’s got genetically reenforced skin. That’s standard on all field operatives how do you _not_ have needles to handle that?”

“We’ve been using them,” one of the techs said.

“They didn’t want me to be experimented on,” Desmond said, still smiling and scratched his neck. “So I have special skin. No needles.”

“Can you be cut?” Altair asked, actually interested. His own reenforced skin made normal needles useless but with enough force he _could_ get cut.

“Nope. Not by any knives you have,” Desmond said it all very cheerfully.

“Why didn’t you tell the techs this?”

“I figured they’d get it,” he shrugged. “They’re supposed to be smart, right?”

“That’s what I thought,” he looked at the techs.

“Hey!”

“Is he contaminated?”

“We can’t tell. We need a blood sample.”

“Or a saliva swab,” Altair said, “or a urine sample, or a stool sample. Don’t give me that ‘we need a blood sample’. Figure out if he’s contaminated in the next hour or you’re going to have to deal with _me_. And I just came back from dealing with this shit in the Rockies and haven’t had a chance to sleep yet. So better figure it out _quick_ ,” and it was _definitely_ a threat. The techs jumped to. “And you,” he added to Desmond. “Stop being difficult. Making their lives difficult makes my life difficult, which in turn’ll make your life difficult. Got it?”

“I dig,” and Altair gave him the strangest look. He didn’t ask Desmond what that meant and he sort of figured he didn’t want to know either.

“Good,” he said, in lieu of what to say otherwise. The techs pulled Desmond away and took a saliva swab and a mucus swab and Altair sat in a chair to the side, watching. Once they got their samples the techs left the plastic tent and got out of their crazy biohazard suits and left to run tests.

“Hey, Altair,” Desmond was against the wall again.

“Yeah, twelve?”

“This is unnecessary,” he said. “I’m not contaminated, or sick, or diseased. I’m immune to most diseases, including the common cold and old world STDs-

“How do you even know what an STD is? You’re like… nine.”

“I’m eleven,” he said seriously. “And I don’t catch new world STDs either, or actually I can’t get sick in general. I’ve had chicken pox-

“Well that’s archaic-

“And my tonsils out and my appendix too. I have perfect blood pressure and will until I’m fifty or so pretty much no matter what I do. I have a fully formed heart,” which was good since sometimes children could be born with a malformed one, organ defects weren’t common, but they weren’t rare either, since the Rebuilding. It had something to do with the solution they were grown in more than the genes, but even malformed they were usually pretty fixable, and if not they could just grow a new heart or organ from their own stem cells so there was nearly no chance of the organ being rejected. “Though it’s a bit bigger than yours. I dunno why, but it is.”

“There a reason you’re telling me this, kid?”

“Because I know you could make them listen.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I’m eleven, not a moron. Alpha-one, sounds like a pretty important designation to me. All the others called you sir, even the techs,” Desmond was leaning against the plastic wall now. “I’m _fine_ , and healthy, and not a carrier. I just want to be outside.”

“We’ll see.”

“Altaaaaiir,” he whined miserably. “You’re supposed to say okay.”

“Kid, I have two boys at home. You really think whining at me is going to change my mind?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well you’re wrong. Got it? It won’t, now just sit tight like a good boy until the techs come back.”

“They won’t find anything,” Desmond pouted, arms folded. “I’m as clean as a new baby… okay maybe not _that_ clean since babies get sick easy. And I-

“Desmond,” Altair said, “Shut up.”

Desmond frowned at him, “That’s mean.”

“I don’t know where it got into your head that I’m a nice man kid,” Altair told him.

“Cause you are.”

He scoffed, “Please.”

“You _are_ ,” he said. “Or you wouldn’t have pushed nine out the way. Or you wouldn’t have come just because I called.”

“I don’t know what’s in your head kid. But I’m here under orders. The brass says you’re my responsibility. So here I am.” Desmond beamed at him, “… which you knew would happen,” he said and Desmond’s grin was pleased. “You’re good kid,” he admitted.

“I should be. I’m supposed to be here,” he said. “And I’m good at reading people. You want to help me. Even though you’re being a butt head about it.”

“A what head?”

“A butt head.”

“Kid where did you learn to talk?”

“Home.”

“Yeah well no one says ‘butt head’. By the God what does that even _mean_?” Altair stared at him.

“It means you’re a butt head,” Desmond said.

“What’s a butt head though?”

“That your head, is actually a butt?”

“Is this _supposed_ to be an insult?”

“Yes.”

“You’re out of date.”

“At least I’m not old like you,” and Desmond stuck his tongue out at him.

“Very mature.”

“I’m eleven.”

“Sir?” Altair looked up when one of the techs, now in the room, spoke up.

“Yeah? You done?”

“No, there’s actually a call for you from Command.”

“From who?”

“Support.”

“Ah. There a terminal around here?”

“Yeah, down a floor.”

“Thanks,” and he got up, “Behave,” he added to Desmond who pulled a face at him, Altair shook a stern finger at him before leaving. He went down a floor and after a moment found a room for terminals. Normally you’d just take a call over a phone or comm, but Altair didn’t usually do that when he was in a bureau. Easier to just not honestly because over a phone you could get interrupted, or things could be traced.

He picked an empty terminal. A few people were using other the, hooked in, the screens blank white, or flickering to colors at high speed, too fast for the normal eye to really see, unless you were interfacing. He sat down and popped open a compartment and pulled out a series of wires. Program admins back at the fortress had specialized suits to help them interface smoothly and fully integrated. As it was if you had the seventh EV you usually got put into the admins, because the seventh wasn’t something a lot of people had. Most of support didn’t and virtually no field agents. But Altair had _all_ the EVs, thirteen in total a miracle of genetics they said. That included the seventh which allowed for terminal interfacing.

He didn’t have a suit but you didn’t need one. The suit helped for full integration, all you really needed was a few wires. He strapped the monitor to his wrist, it would monitor his heart rate during it and kick him out if something happened. A sticker went to either temple and then the last, more like a dome with a flat bottom and a tiny hole in it, went at the nape of his neck.

Altair stared at the white screen after it took him a few seconds for the EV to kick in. He didn’t usually use EVs six through nine, because he wasn’t support, and because in society they didn’t have the devices the Assassins designed to work with these special abilities that made it nearly impossible for them to be hacked because you literally couldn’t see the information without the sixth. But it kicked in and he felt a prick on his neck and the white screen changed and became different.

It was said interfacing looked different for everyone. For Altair it was a mostly white room. White and a weird pale but not light blue and filled with a dense fog that he could see through a few feet before it became impossible to penetrate. He didn’t know what interfacing looked like for anyone else as when you pulled out you couldn’t really recall what it looked like, like having a minor memory wipe. It mattered little. 

As fast as he could think it Altair found the ‘call’ in the bureau’s system for him and streaked down the line to the fortress support. He found the ones he wanted nearly instantly and was now in their version of what the interface looked like, which was very grid-like and organized. It reminded him of street roads. He knew they weren’t interfacing, since if you had it you were a program admin, or a core programmer if you had all four, if you were in support. This was their terminal though. 

“This is alpha-one to support,” he ‘said’. Sort of saying but his voice was only audible to those with the ninth EV. He pinged support to let them know to turn their ears up. He’d been told his voice sounded very different over interfacing.

“This is support. Took you long enough,” it was the cranky male support from his mission.

“You really need to stop flirting with me. I have a partner you know,” Altair said.

“Yeah because I am _so_ eager to get into your pants. I bet you have a little dick anyway.”

“Will you stop?” asked the calmer support, “Honestly you can worry about who’s sucking who’s dick later,” they said irritably.

“I like your partner better.”

“Yeah well he can’t hear you so save your flattery.”

“What he say?” Altair pinged the other support’s monitor before the cranky one could answer. “Ha! At least you aren’t beta-one, she’s a real piece of work that one.”

“She is,” and he pinged the monitor with everything he said so the nice support wouldn’t be left out of the conversation.

“Now who’s wasting time,” cranky said.

“Right right,” and then a visual of someone’s helmet was being brought up.

“Do you know what this is?” cranky asked.

“No. I’ve never seen anything like it,” the walls were black and looked slick, with glowing teal hieroglyph looking shapes on it.

“This is the cam from delta-four,” nice support said.

“The one who made it out of the botch job.”

“Yes. And it was in the same place you found the other Deltas. It was also the same place you and your Alphas were.”

“I don’t see what the situation is.”

“This is your cam,” and another screen came up. “Serenity was able to keep you online even after six and ten were dropped off.” Altair’s cam feed was very different. The walls were cut stone. Not smooth _or_ black, and there were no hieroglyphs at all.

Altair grabbed delta-four’s feed and replayed. “He’s hiding behind something,” Altair said.

“Yes.”

“There was no cover in the tunnel we were in either.”

“Yes. So in the few days between the Delta mission and the Alpha one the entire tunnel _changed_. The walls, cover, and the Deltas were not moved from where you found them.”

“Hmm.”

“In the dead zone did you see any surfaces like this?” cranky asked.

“I don’t know. I was blind.”

“What?”

“My helmet died entirely, I lost visual in the dead zone and was just following the kid by touch,” he was still looking over delta-four’s feed.

“Your visor went opaque?”

“Yeah. And I lost contact with Serenity. I fixed both when I left the dead zone,” and then he stopped delta-four’s video. “What’s…” and he enhanced a part of it. “Have you seen this?” he asked.

“What?”

“This,” and he sectioned off the part of the feed and enhanced it further and lightened it and finally, there, in the dark, emerged a figure. Two figures. A tall one, and a little one.

“Woah. How did you see this?” the nice one asked and the feed was copied right in his hands and flicked away to his own terminal.

“I dunno.”

“That looks like a human.”

“And a kid,” Altair said.

“Parent and child?”

“The kid you found,” cranky said.

“Looks like him. What’s the adult doing?” they were holding something, but the quality wasn’t good enough to see what it was. “Hello?” he asked when support was quiet for a while.

“Thank you alpha-one, that will be all,” cranky said suddenly.

“Wait? What?”

“That will be all. Return to your duties.”

“Hold on-

“We’ve been ordered by upper brass. _Return to your duties_ ,” and then suddenly he was locked out of the terminal. Altair wasn’t good enough to wriggle his way back in and he just starred at the hexagon made wall with a frown. What in the hell?

There was nothing really for it though. He withdrew to his own terminal and then pulled out and was sitting where he’d started. He also had a _raging_ headache. Interfacing was untraceable and untappable so was good for talking to support or important upper brass of the Order. But Altair wasn’t cut out for it despite having the four support EVs and using them usually left him with a migraine, like now. He reached up and pulled off the plug on his neck and tugged the needle out, tossing it into the bin next to the terminal, a new one would be put in once the wires were put back. He tugged off the tags and the heart monitor and the terminal switched off as he put them back. Altair took a step back and then turned around, it was offically out of his hands.


	4. Come Home

Even with quick elevators it still took time to travel nearly twenty floors. And that was when you could _get_ one of the fortress inclusive elevators, which wasn’t common, but not uncommon either. Rauf had ridden the all fortress service elevators a few times in his life, and he wasn’t some young billy goat. But he also moved around within the same three levels most of his life and had no need to use them. So that meant he had to catch an elevator at his area take it down to the novice training halls, get off, and then get on another one. Normally this worked out very well as Rauf usually didn’t go lower than floor twenty-two. Or at least when he didn’t want to get down to the Nursery and then he didn’t go nearly as often as Altair. He was just _busy_ , it happened when you were an instructor. He was always working. 

Neither Altair nor Sef begrudged him that though. It wasn’t like he was a field operative and when he was home he could just laze about willy nilly like Altair did between his missions. No, not any more. Now he had work every day and even with his level of patience he sometimes just wanted to throw his students down a flight of stairs.

He waited for another of the tri-level elevators to become available. To be honest the elevator system still confused Rauf, and he’d grown up with it. It still was sort of amazing though that there were eleven elevators on each floor, and only seven serviced the entire fortress, the others only went between specific floors. He’d gotten on the wrong one more than once and had been annoyed to find himself going to an entire different level instead of just another floor. Altair claimed to have never gotten them mixed up. Rauf knew _that_ was a bald faced lie though.

The elevator dinged and Rauf went in. He pressed one of the six buttons on the side, that went to the different levels in the fortress, from there you had to get off this elevator and either catch an all service elevator, or one that serviced that level. As he said, it was _confusing_. Rauf should have just walked.

A moment later though the doors were opening with a gentle ding to the Nursery. Rauf left the elevator and it was immediately being called to another level. He signed in at the front where a nice nurse smiled at him with golden eyes, no doubt checking him out with her Eagle Eyes. He didn’t know how support worked but he didn’t want to either. So he just smiled back and entered the children’s area.

The Nursery was two parts. One was the fraternal area where the AWCs and the babies were cared for until they were about two years old. And then there was the larger part of the nursery, for toddlers and small children until they were eight when they were sent up two levels to the novice halls where they started their training. The Nursery constantly had a population of one-hundred and sixty children to two-hundred children, and most of the fortress knew all their children by name, because children were rare and special.

Rauf entered the nursery and looked around. The front area was a big play room filled with toys and stuffed animals and covered in a soft rug. One part of the floor was touch sensitive and he saw children drawing on it. Others were playing with the infinite numbers of toys. It was here, really, where the Order’s unity started. No child was without a friend or play mate as they were all one. 

Many of them were darker skinned as well after the fall of the Near East fortress that had actually put Rauf’s own parents here. The fortress was still trying to reach an equilibrium in skin tone, as eventually it all evened out, they were all family and the color of one’s skin was inconsequential, or the build of their bodies, or their height.

Society liked to think they lived in a utopia. There were only small clusters of war, the plague had wiped out most people who had been poor and starving (unfortunate but true). They’d been the fodder for their blitzing wars after the Collapse where they’d all tried to kill each other thinking another country had sabotaged them. Those were all gone now and there was very little to fight over, though Colorado was another story in itself and he wasn’t even going to think of Utah. He still had nightmares about that. Altair had told him horror stories, and he’d watched feeds from helmet cams after the missions had been completed. It was terrible and terrifying.

But though society like to think itself a utopia it was not. There was still strife and people were still shunned and cast aside based on color, creed, sex, sexual preference, and every manner of thing, just like before the Collapse. The Order was a utopia. No one wanted for anything and here no one was left aside, no one was different because they were _all_ different, and different was good. Different meant an interesting combination of genes that would show itself in interesting ways as the child grew older. To be different in the Order was to excel.

Rauf glanced over the children but decided the one he wanted wasn’t here. So he moved towards the sleeping rooms filled with bunk beds, all the sheets cheerful and different, the walls a calming yellow color. The rooms were labeled on the door frames but Rauf knew where he was going.

He opened one of the doors and looked in. He smiled. “You better not be shrinking your lessons,” he said as a way to announce himself.

The two boys laying on their bellies on the floor, playing on the touch sensitive floor, some sort of game, looked up sharply. “Baba!” Sef cried and leapt right to his feet, ran over to him and jumped on him. In five seconds he had the little boy clinging to him, legs wrapped around his waist. “Baba baba baba baba baba baba-

“Yes Sef, I’m here. Calm down,” Rauf laughed and pried his son off him to hold him properly. He was getting big and Rauf wasn’t getting any taller. He’d inherited Altair’s height it seemed. All the better, being short was no fun, in the Order or society. It made reaching things difficult and having to use a chair to reach a shelf was always a bit embarrassing. “And you,” he look at Darim sternly.

“Classes are over Rauf,” he chirped from where he was laying. “I promise I’m not skipping,” he added.

“Do I believe you?” he knew that the different novice levels stopped lessons at different times during the day. Rauf only knew the older novice times though since he taught only ninth or tenth level. Any less and it was a waste of his skill.

“I _promise_ ,” Darim said and gave him the _same_ look Altair did when he was lying.

“Get to class,” Rauf said and pointed out the door. With a groan Darim picked himself up off the floor and slouched out of the room. “Don’t make me tell your father,” he added.

“He skipped all the time though,” Darim pouted.

“He was also a prodigy,” Rauf reminded him. “Are you?” Darim said nothing, “Go,” and he shooed Darim away.

“Is dad coming home soon?” Darim asked. “He is coming home right?” he added.

“He’s fine. He’ll be coming home when he comes home. Now _go_ you have class,” Rauf said sternly.

“Yes Rauf,” Darim sighed a long sigh and left the bedroom. 

“You have such a disobedient brother Sef,” Rauf told his son, his other hand not helping to hold him up on his hip. “Don’t be like him.”

“I won’t baba,” Sef promised. “I’ll be like you instead.”

Rauf chuckled, “Yes. A very good idea,” he agreed.

“And baba, baba, look, look,” he tugged on Rauf’s shirt urgently as Rauf left the room.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I can doooo— this!” Sef cried and his eyes turned gold. Rauf stopped in his tracks.

“Oh my,” Rauf said. It was rare, very rare, for children to start showing EVs until they hit puberty. There were exceptions of course, Altair had been. A few others had been as well. Sef was only six. He didn’t know how early Altair had been able to do it, but he’d had several by the time most boys were getting their first EV. “What do I look like?” he asked.

“You’re all funny a blue colored,” Sef giggled.

“Ah,” Rauf nodded, of course, Classic. “Don’t show anyone but me and your daddy this Sef,” he said.

“Why?”

“Just don’t. Okay? Now put it away.”

“Ooookay,” Sef sighed. “But isn’t that neat?! I can do it like you and daddy and Darim do,” he said excitedly.

Rauf chuckled, “Yes. It is very neat,” he said as they went out to the main room. The Eagle Vision was the one thing that made them less than a utopia. Children who had it early were sent into training early, were trained harder, were expected more of. Most parents didn’t want that for their children since so much was already expected of them. Even Altair had kept his hidden until other boys had started to show their first EV. Not to mention it was one of the few things that separated Assassins, how many EVs you had. Adults knew not to be envious, but Rauf knew as a teenager that many kids in his class were jealous of him. He had ten EVs, which was quite a few, the most most field operatives had as the other three were nearly strictly support based and he had no use for them, even though he’d been tested for them just like all the others. He did not want that for Sef, and neither would Altair. So they’d be kept a secret for now.

“Baba,” Sef said as they walked around the back of the main nurse desk.

“Yes, Sef?” he asked, entering the paternal care area. He passed by the large wall window of sleeping babies from last year’s season, sleeping in color coordinated basinets of red and blue. He saw one that held two babies; twins. A near impossible thing in the fortress, and even in society, though you could request twins or triplets at a Child Bank. There was no such thing in the Order. One child per AWC, at least usually. Obviously they couldn’t control _everything_ and sometimes twins happened.

“Am I _really_   going to be a big brother?”

Rauf chuckled, “Yes Sef.”

“Like Darim?”

“Yes Sef,” he smiled fondly at his boy.

“When?”

“In a few months.”

Sef frowned deeply at him, “I wanna be a big brother _now,”_ he said.

Rauf laughed, “I’m sorry Sef but your little sibling has to grow first before you can see them. See,” he said as they entered the AWC room. It had been two months since the start of the season though not many people were down here. Altair was down here a lot Rauf knew that. He wasn’t quite sure why but he seemed to both seek comfort here and offer it to the unborn here. During the year Sef had been down here Altair had been down here _constantly_ , eventually dragging Rauf down as well, though he himself had had no interest in having children before Altair. Now he had Sef and didn’t know what he’d do if anything happened to their son.

“My little brother’s in there?” Sef pointed.

“Or sister,” Rauf said, not until late in the season would they know what gender it was though they be able to tell soon. Gender didn’t matter though, Assassins were simply happy to have children. Most just had one in their life, like Rauf would probably only ever have Sef, and he was okay with that. Altair had _three_ children, which was pretty much unheard of. Only a few other people in the fortress had more than two, including the Mentor’s brother, Giovanni, who had _four_. Four children. Everyone knew it was both favoritism and the fact that all the man’s children were exceptional. Except the latest one who was small and sickly. No more children for Giovanni.

“What’s their name?” Sef asked.

“I don’t know,” Rauf said. “Your daddy and the one he was joined with haven’t decided yet,” it would be interesting to see what sort of name Altair and Malik could agree upon to be quite honest, since they agreed on _nothing_.

“Oh. Which one?” Sef asked, looking at the line of AWCs.

Rauf walked up to the line of tubes. Altair had shown him which one, but it had been a bit ago, he didn’t remember. But they were labeled with the two parents so it wasn’t difficult to find. “This one,” Rauf said, stopping in front of one and hefted his son a bit. Children were heavy and Rauf wasn’t getting any younger or taller, soon he wouldn’t be able to pick Sef up. As it was the boy was half his height.

Sef reached out and pressed his hand to the glass. “Hello baby,” Sef said. “I’m Sef, your big brother,” and Rauf smiled as Sef talked to the AWC like it could talk back. It was cute.

Another couple entered, they stood in front of theirs few a few moments, spoke briefly and then one of the woman left in a _huge_ huff. The other woman ran after her, Rauf watched with half interest. By this point he’d just transferred Sef to his shoulders because it was easier to hold him like that as he had strong shoulders. Sef was _still_ talking. Rauf didn’t know _where_ he got his chattering from since Altair was a quiet man, and Rauf, while friendly, didn’t talk idly like Sef could.

The door opened again and Rauf looked, only with slight interest and his brows went up. It was Malik. Rauf would honestly recognize Malik from anywhere, just because he’d never heard so much hate for a man as he did last month when Altair had been told of his forced joining. Rauf, truthfully, didn’t know much about Malik, as he hadn’t Altair until their joining, as the man was three years younger than him and worked in a totally different part of the fortress. All he knew about Malik was what Altair told him and he knew everything that came out of Altair’s mouth about Malik was stained with dislike, so he took very little of it seriously.

Malik walked the AWCs like he’d never been there before, reading the plaques, looking for his, though Rauf was standing in front of it. In fact, he didn’t even read Rauf’s, assuming it was his and thus not his. Rauf snorted to himself when Malik walked around him to read the rest of the line and then looked _very_ confused as to why he couldn’t find his name.

“You’re looking for this one,” Rauf said, pointing at the AWC his son was still talking to.

“Excuse me?” Malik asked, looking at him.

“You’re Malik right?”

“…Yes,” he said as if not quite sure of it himself.

“This one is yours,” Rauf  said. “Sef, shush,” he added to his son.

“But baba, I was just getting to the good bit,” Sef whined. He honestly didn’t know _what_ Sef had been talking about. Probably some dream he had. 

“Later,” he tutted as Malik came towards him. Rauf stepped away from the AWC as Sef lay on his head, arms hanging on either side of his face. 

Malik stood in front of his AWC and then turned to him, “What are _you_ doing in front of my AWC?” he asked, slightly accusing, as if Rauf could damage it. Ha! As if.

“I’m Rauf,” he said, there was no recognition. Not a surprise, they had different jobs, a different circle of friends, really the only thing they had in common was they’d been joined with Altair and both resonated well with him.

“Who? And how do you know me?” Malik asked, dark brows forming a single line over his eyes.

Rauf smiled a little, one that showed through his beard. “I’m an instructor,” he said, “and Altair’s partner.”

Malik’s face turned to dislike _instantly_ , _“_ I see,” Malik said in contempt. 

“No, apparently not,” Rauf said, actually insulted he was being judged solely for who he shared a bed with. “I was hoping to think better of you. All Altair tells me is that you’re a awful human being,” he said it without malice, but clearly so Malik would get what he was getting at. “Is he right?”

Malik blinked at him, clearly not having expected such a rebuke. Then he seemed to shift, an internal perception of Rauf changing so he wasn’t just ‘the man Altair slept with’ and was now ‘the man who puts up with Altair’. “No,” Malik said. “Forgive me, it’s been a very stressful week,” he sighed a little.

“Yes. Delta going down,” Rauf agreed solemnly.

“More dealing with Alpha,” Malik sighed, “I’m in support,” he elaborated.

“Ah-“ oh, well. “You led Alpha?”

“Yes. And their commander—“ he pantomimed strangling someone, “if I ever find out who he really is I’m going to actually throttle him.”

“I see,” Rauf said slowly. Funny that. The man Malik wanted to hurt was the man he was joined with. Somehow he wasn’t surprised in the slightest. They didn’t even know the other had been on the other end of their comm and had been abrasive to one another. Though to be fair Altair was Alpha-one and support could be very annoying. “He is Alpha-one,” he reminded Malik.

Malik snorted, unimpressed, “I could have been in Alpha if I hadn’t opened the proper EVs,” he said.

“Really?” he didn’t know that.

“Yeah. Or, I could have tried out for Alpha,” Malik said, “Charlie would have suited me better.”

“Well Charlie is nothing to scoff at,” Rauf said, not when most field agents were slotted into Echo and below. “But you’re in support,” he said, “just as prestigious,” especially for a man. Most support and tech were women, they tended to unlock those EVs and men didn’t. They were harder to do so for both genders, no one was quite sure why, it was the general consensus that it was because women had been sight than men did and were less likely to be color blind or have distorted vision.

“You’d be surprised how boring,” Malik said.

“I don’t believe that,” Rauf scoffed.

“A lot of it is just sitting around waiting for who you’re leading to enter the hot zone,” Malik said.

“Ah,” Rauf nodded. Then with a grunt Rauf pulled Sef off his shoulders, his boy was too heavy.

“Is he yours?” Malik asked, as sometimes partners helped with their partner’s child even if they had none of their own.

“He is,” Rauf said and gently ran his hand through Sef’s hair.

“With Altair?” and there was a weird edge to Malik’s voice.

“Yes,” Rauf said as if he was wondering why Malik would ask such a stupid question. “His name is Sef. Sef, say hello.”

“Hello,” and Sef waved at Malik in the bright manner only children could. Malik smiled slightly at the little boy. “Do you know my daddy?”

“Yes,” Malik said.

“He’s great, isn’t he?”

Malik’s face was interesting. Clearly he wasn’t that much of an awful person to tell a child no their father was actually an awful person. “So some would have us believe,” Malik said. Rauf laughed.

“Excuse us,” Rauf said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your time here,” because really, he had. Normally people didn’t visit AWCs that weren’t theirs. But he’d promised Altair he’d come visit it while he was on his mission, so he had.

“No, it’s fine, really,” Malik said. “Are you doing anything?”

“Just visiting my son,” Rauf said ruffling Sef’s hair affectionately, “and coming here like Altair asked.”

“He asked?”

“Yes. If he couldn’t come he asked me to. He said you didn’t come here very often.”

“Oh.”

“Why? Was there something you needed?”

“Dinner’s soon. Care to join me?”

“You know I _am_ with someone,” and they both had a laugh at that.

“I can clearly see you’re the much better half of Sef’s parentage,” Malik said. “And you put up with Altair, surely you have some hints on how to not want to punch him in the face on sight.”

“He does tend to do that doesn’t he?” Rauf agreed, though had never wanted to do it himself. He knew plenty of others, especially in society, who would take one look at Altair and it could start a fight. There was something dangerous about Altair to those people that just triggered the flight or fight response in humans. “Sure,” he said. “Just let me take Sef back. “Floor twenty-nine?”

“Thirty,” Malik said.

Rauf gave him a little of a look, “Are you _sure_ you’re not trying to get into my pants?” he asked, since floor twenty-nine was much more casual, thirty was not.

Malik rolled his eyes, “I’m having dinner with a couple, don’t think so much,” he said.

“Ah. Very well then. I’ll meet you up there. Come on Sef.”

“Bye bye,” Sef said, waving as Rauf gently pulled him away. Malik waved and managed to smile a little at the boy. Then they left Malik in the AWC room.

—

Altair sat, watching Desmond eat. He was eleven years old but ate like a sixteen year old. It was like he had a bottomless stomach, or two hollow legs that the food just fell into. Altair had eaten already. Munahid was sitting next to him, trying not to look on in actual horror. Munahid had no children though, he didn’t understand that not only could they put away the food but they didn’t do so neatly.

Desmond stopped as he ate and looked at Munahid then at Altair. “Why’s he looking at me like that?”

“Because you eat like you’ve never seen food in your life,” Altair said bluntly. “Honestly where are you good eating habits?”

“Uh… sorry?” Desmond asked. “There are good eating habits?”

Altair rolled his eyes, “What, were you raised in a cage or something?”

“Yes, actually,” and both Altair and Munahid stared at him. “It was a very nice cage though,” and then he went back to eating. “None of the food there looked like this or tasted like this.”

“Wait, back track. You were locked up?” Munahid asked.

“I said it was a cage, I didn’t say I was locked up,” Desmond said, mouth full.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Altair said automatically. Sef still talked with his mouth full and he’d been to the Nursery enough times during meals to have just developed the habit. But then Sef was seemingly _always_ talking. Darim had never had that problem, but then he was much more Altair than his brother. Though Sef wasn’t his baba either. He didn’t know _where_ Sef had come from and he was half sure that they’d labeled the wrong AWC during that season. Not that it mattered, he still loved Sef.

“But you’re talking to me. How am I supposed to eat and-

“Don’t _talk_ with your mouth _full_ ,” Altair cut him off. Munahid chuckled. Desmond sulked and finished chewing. “Now, cage, explain,” he ordered.

“Why?”

“Because you were kept in a cage.”

“Not a little one,” Desmond said. “It was bigger than the bureau.”

“That’s not a cage,” Munahid said.

“It was if you couldn’t leave,” Desmond said and took another bite of his noodles.

“Semantics,” Altair said. “So you going to tell us anything else? Like where you came from?”

“No,” Desmond said around his noodles. “It’s a secret.”

“Is he _always_ like this?” Munahid asked.

“ _Yes_ ,” Altair groaned and rubbed his head. It hadn’t even been a week, but Altair had learned nothing real from Desmond. The kid was cryptic and he knew how to talk, and tell Altair something and not actually _tell_ Altair anything.

“He’s annoying,” Munahid said.

“You’re telling me!” Altair cried. Desmond just giggled. “Uhg,” he was so done with Desmond at this point.

Behind them the door opened. The two men turned and looked, “Alpha-one?” they asked carefully. 

Altair and Munahid traded looks, “That’s me,” Altair said.

“You’re being called by the bureau leader.”

“For what?”

“Work.”

“Great,” Altair sighed. “Okay. Keep an eye on him Munahid.”

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“Keep him out of trouble and don’t let him talk you into anything. Damn kid could convince a wall to suddenly sprout a door,” Desmond smirked at that. Altair sent him a look and he followed the man who’d gotten him.

“They’re downstairs,” he said.

“Right,” he nodded. Unlike the fortress bureaus were built top to bottom and not bottom to top so the bureau leader was in the bottom basement. So Altair got in the elevator and went down, the man with him as you needed a key card to access the basements from the elevator or the stairs. 

The elevator opened and Altair walked down to the bureau leader’s office. He knocked and was let in. “Sir, you wanted to see me?” he asked.

“Hello one,” they said and motioned for him to sit. He did. “We have a mission for you.”

“Okay.”

“It’s… rather dangerous.”

Altair was silent for a moment, “You know I’m Alpha-one right? I don’t get missions unless they are ‘actually dangerous’, sir,” and the bureau leader seemed amused by that. “What am I doing?”

“We’re sending you to Utah-

“What?” he interrupted. “Sir, Utah’s a no fly zone. We pulled out of there years ago.”

“Yes, we did,” he agreed. “But we need to know what’s going on in the interior. You’re Alpha-one-

“Charlie is much better suited for espionage than I am, sir,” Altair couldn’t help it. He _really_ didn’t want to go to Utah. It was dangerous there. It was a religious military state and the mormons didn’t like people who weren’t mormons. Altair was an atheist. They’d kill him if they ever knew.

“This isn’t espionage one. This is a tracking mission.”

Altair blinked, “What?”

He brought up a holographic map of the capital of Utah; Salt Lake City. “We’re getting a transmission from just outside the city. Small, barely there, but on _our_ frequency,” which was saying something. Tracking beacons were at a frequency normal people and machines couldn’t detect. You could only see the signal through the sixth EV, and that was only if you had a machine that could pick up such transmissions. “We don’t know who or what it is. But it’s clearly something we made. Your mission is to get in there, find it, and then get out.”

“What do I do with what I find?” Altair asked.

“We’ll decide that when you find it,” the bureau leader said.

“How long as it been active?”

“Two days. I sent it back to the fortress. They know you’re here. You’re on it.”

He frowned, “If I’m going into Utah I refuse to go alone,” he said. Normally Altair worked best alone, or with his unit.

“You can’t bring all of Alpha with you.”

“Then one or two. I need someone to watch my back against those mormons,” he said.

The bureau leader’s mouth became thin a moment. “Fine.  Who?”

“Eleven, and nine,” he said. “Nine speaks Utarian and if something goes sideways eleven can patch us up.”

“Fine. I’ll authorize this,” he nodded. “You’re going in with minimal armaments. No suits, no helmets. All we’ll have on you in a ear piece.”

“Okay,” Altair said, but he didn’t like it. He hated going into the field unarmored. It made him nervous.

“You leave in three hours. Tell your men and get ready to go.”

“Sir.”

“You’re dismissed one,” he said. Altair stood, saluted, and then left the office. 

—

Finding nine was easy, Haytham hung around three- Christopher- and five- Ehan- mostly. They were in the upper recreational floors playing pool. Ehan was smoking and Chris was helping Haytham actually not suck at pool.

“Hey Altair,” Ehan said around his cigarette. In the past cigarettes had been extremely dangerous and toxic. Since the Collapse new laws had been put in place to make sure that nearly everything in cigarettes was both organic and non addictive. They couldn’t have their tiny special population killing itself on cigarettes. They came in and out of style and right now were out, sales the lowest they’d been in a century. Ehan was one of the only people Altair knew who smoked.

“Nine,” he said and Haytham elbowed Chris in the gut, and not just because it looked like Chris might have grabbed his ass. Chris played grab ass with everyone though. He straightened as Chris bent over the pool table.

“Yes, sir?” Haytham said, pool cue in a ready position in his hand like a spear.

“We’re going to Utah,” he said.

Haytham paled, “We are?”

“Yes.”

“The God be damned,” Haytham swore.

“Where’s eleven?” Altair continued.

“Where do you think?” Chris asked, having gotten his wind back. Altair rolled his eyes. “Those two are in their twenties right? Are we really sure they aren’t actually like… fourteen or something.”

“You’re just bitter because the girls think you’re a creep,” Haytham rolled his eyes at Chris.

“Enough,” Altair said flatly. “We have three. Nine, get your gear together. We’re going in naked.”

“Shit,” Haytham growled.

“I know. I don’t like it either. A bird is going to fly us to the border, we’re driving to Salt Lake.”

“Damnit damnit,” Haytham wasn’t happy.

“I’ll brief you both on the trip. Now get your shit together,” and then he left the three there.

—

Feeling like the dad he was Altair banged on the door. “Oi, you two,” he called through the door. He was met by dead silence, which was funny since not a second ago there _had_ been noise. “Seven get off him I need eleven,” he called again.

“How important is this?” Diyari called.

“Important enough that if you aren’t out here in the next ten seconds with underwear on I am coming in there,” Altair threatened.

Not even ten seconds passed and Diyari slid out of the room. If the light sheen of sweat on his skin didn’t give away what he’d just been doing the way his hair was all tangled most certainly did. “Yes, sir?” Diyari asked, trying to not look incredibly embarrassed about standing in front of his commanding officer in briefs.

Altair didn’t even notice. “You, me, and nine are going to Utah.”

“What?” Diyari’s eyes got huge.

“Yeah. I know. I don’t like it either. We leave in three hours. I’ll brief you and nine on the way to the drop off. So finish up, pack your gear and get ready to go.”

Diyari took a deep breath, “I see.”

“Also, we’re going nude.”

“Fuck,” Diyari looked skyward miserably.

“Yeah. I know. That’s what I thought. But tough shit, we’re Alpha and need to deal with it.”

“Okay. So the roof in three hours?”

“You got it.”

Diyari nodded, “How much gear should I bring?”

“Some sort of kit. I don’t know what the situation in Utah will be like. Just be prepared for anything,” he saw Diyari mentally cataloguing everything he had and would need for this mission.

“Okay. I can do that. Uh… see you in three hours.”

“Make sure you can walk,” Altair pointed at him sternly.

“Shut up,” Diyari said, but his face was bright red. Then he opened the door and went back inside. Altair was leaving as he heard Jari say through the door, ‘you’ve got to be kidding me!’

—

He’d put this off to the end. Honestly the mission to the Rockies hadn’t been dangerous. Utah was dangerous though. He sat at a terminal and after a moment hooked himself in. The terminal flickered and he sank into it.

A moment later he was where he needed to be. It was late at the fortress, as where they were was an hour behind. He made sure to buzz the terminal a lot, making noise. Several moments passed and Altair frowned. What if he wasn’t in? Then the terminal was properly switched on. This wasn’t like the terminals support used, these were personal terminals, like computers society used, though on its own network, independent of society. “Hello?” asked the tired voice.

Altair tweaked the inside of the terminal, clearly he’d woken Rauf up, and now felt bad for that. “Hey,” he said so his voice transmitted over the speakers and a second later he had the cameras turned on. So now he could see Rauf’s face and Rauf could see his visual.

“Altair? You know what time it is right?” and Rauf rubbed his eyes.

“I know, sorry. I was putting the call off. I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said. Rauf yawned, he had one of their blankets over his shoulders and tugged it closer around him.

“What is it?”

Altair hesitated, “I…”

“Altair?” Rauf asked, becoming a bit more awake. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m going on a mission, to Utah-

“No,” Rauf cut him off.

“What?”

“No. You aren’t going to Utah,” he said like a child about to throw a tantrum.

Altair just chuckled, “I don’t want to, but I am.”

“No,” Rauf just said again.

“Nine and eleven are coming with me,” he assured Rauf.

“It’s still dangerous,” Rauf said in a small voice.

“I know. But they’ll watch my back.”

“And you theirs, right?”

“Right,” Altair nodded.

There was a long silence, “This call better not be what I think it is,” Rauf said.

“It is,” Altair said.

Rauf looked away, “I don’t want to hear it.”

“You don’t want to hear the last thing I might say to you?” Altair asked. Because it was _Utah_. Even before the borders had closed Utah was a place a lot of people had died. Even for someone like Altair a mission to Utah was dangerous.

Rauf looked at him sadly, “I want to pretend that you’re not going,” he said, “and that really that last time you talked to me was before you left for the Rockies.”

Altair smiled, “Yeah, that was nice,” he agreed. There were really few things someone could like more than sex before a mission. He didn’t doubt Diyari had gotten all of his gear together as quickly as possible before going back to bed. “You check on my baby?” he asked.

“Yes,” Rauf nodded. “I took Sef. He’s really excited about being a big brother.”

Altair smiled, “That’s good.”

“Also your son was skipping lessons again,” and Altair knew he meant Darim. Sef was their son, Darim was Altair’s.

Altair groaned, “Again? I am going to have a word with him when I get back.”

“You better,” Rauf told him firmly, more to the point that Altair better _be_ back.

“I will. He can’t be skipping his lessons.”

“No he can’t,” Rauf agreed. “Also, Sef unlocked Classic.”

“He did?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“He showed me today when I went down to the Nursery.”

“Just Classic?”

“As far as I know.”

“He’s six, right?”

“Yes Altair,” Rauf rolled his eyes, Rauf knew Altair knew how old their son was.

“I was five.”

“What?” his confusion was plain on his face.

“I unlocked Classic when I was five. Zoom when I was seven.”

“Well, maybe he _is_ your son then. Sometimes I wonder since he’s so much better at talking to people than you,” Rauf teased. Altair smiled lightly. “How long is this mission supposed to take?”

“Unclear. I’m in Marcusville, we’re driving from the border to Salt Lake.”

“So a few days?”

“Yeah. That’s the hope,” Altair nodded.

“Be home soon,” Rauf said. “The boys miss you.”

“Do you miss me too?”

“I’m not going to answer that,” Rauf said hotly. Altair laughed a little. Of course Rauf missed him. “Just come home. I don’t care what you have to do. You come home, got it?”

“Yes, sir,” and he saluted Rauf.

“That’s right one,” Rauf said with a slight smile.

“Alpha always does as ordered,” Altair promised. He brought up a clock. “I need to go. Heli’s coming in a few minutes and I need to be up there with my men.”

“Okay,” Rauf said quietly.

“Hey,” Altair said, “I’ll be home soon,” he promised.

“If you aren’t I’m going to let Malik at you.”

“Uhg, please don’t… wait, Malik?”

“I met him today too. He’s a lot nicer than you make him out to be,” Altair just growled. “I also think he was hitting on me a bit.”

“I’m going to murder him,” Altair threatened.

Rauf laughed a little, “Easy there. I thought you had a mission?”

“I’m considering canceling it now to make sure Malik backs the fuck off,” Altair wasn’t happy. God damn that guy. If Malik _was_ flirting with Rauf it was only to get at Altair because if it was in any way related to him he did it out of spite. Not to mention he and Rauf had been together for almost seven years. He wasn’t going to let Malik just show up and be an asshole about the whole thing.

“Incentive you make sure you get home?”

“Like I needed another reason,” Altair grumbled.

“I’ll be waiting,” Rauf promised.

Altair took a deep breath, he needed to not stress about what Malik was doing. He wasn’t going to magically convince Rauf to leave him after all. “Okay,” Altair nodded. “Tell the boys I’ll be home soon. I love you.”

Rauf always smiled when he said that, just like he did now. “I love you too,” he said.

“Go back to bed,” Altair said. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“You’ve woken me for a lot less,” Rauf said idly.

“Hey!” Rauf just laughed.

“Goodnight,” Rauf said.

“Goodnight,” Altair mimicked. Rauf leaned forward and kissed the screen. “See you in a few days.” Rauf said nothing, just smiled and turned off his terminal.

Altair slid back into his own skin. He disconnected from the terminal and slid the ear piece in place. “Alpha-one-

“I _swear to the God support_ ,” Altair snarled. “I am _so_ not in the mood right now.”

“Get your ass up to the roof before you make everyone late _again_.”

“Support,” nine chimed in.

“Yes nine?” asked the nice support. _Why_ did they have to have these same two supports.

“Shut the fuck up,” Haytham wasn’t happy. Both he and Diyari knew what Altair had been doing. Honestly he didn’t doubt if Jari was on the roof with them.

“Excuse me?” cranky asked, scandalized and shocked. Field agents didn’t speak to support like that.

“I said shut the fuck up you stupid desk jockey. We’re about to be sent into hostile territory and one was just saying goodbye to his partner. So kindly fuck off. He’s not late, because one is _never_ late as he’s the leader and nothing _happens_ until he’s here. Got it?”

“Not to mention we don’t usually have you two as support,” Diyari chimed in. “I don’t think you understand how _we_ work. And it isn’t on your shitty time table. So lay off, we know what we’re doing.”

There was silence from support. “Thanks,” Altair told his men, meaning it.

“He was starting to piss me off something fierce,” Haytham growled. “Needs to get that stick out of his ass. Poor bastard probably also needs to get laid since no one who has regular sex is that fucking annoying all the time.”

“Amen,” Diyari said.

“You’re my prime example,” Haytham told Diyari. Diyari just laughed. 

“Almost there. You guys boarded?”

“Yes, sir. Waiting for you.”

“Jari leave?”

“No,” Diyari said.

“Tell him to leave,” Altair said. “Last thing I want is the last time he sees you being as you leave in a heli.”

“Don’t say shit like that,” Haytham said.

“It’s a very real possibility that we could _all die_ ,” Altair told them both. “You’re both just kids, so listen to an old man and tell him _to leave_.”

There was radio silence, “He’s gone,” Haytham said as Altair got out of the elevator.

“Good,” and he actually passed Jari as he went onto the roof. Seven didn’t even look at him. He got onto the roof and picked his bag of gear up from the concrete and went to the heli with the open back. Altair climbed in and put his bag away before going up to the pilot. “Hello,” he said.

“Alpha-one,” they said professionally, so unlike Hellhound.

“What’s our call sign?”

“Blue Jay,” he said, “I’m Egg, this is Nest,” he pointed at his male navigator.

“Close us up and get us out of here then Egg,” Altair said.

“Roger that.”

“If we need evac do we call you?”

“Negative. Tell support, they’ll decide if evacs will be sent.”

Altair cursed silently, “Right. Well, lets get a move on then,” and he patted Egg’s helmet and then went back and sat across from his men. He buckled in.

“One,” eleven said.

“Yes, eleven?”

“You’ll get us out of there right?”

Altair looked at them both, “Like every mission, the goal is to come home,” and then the heli lifted off. “So I’ll try my damnedest to make sure we do.”

“That’s all I ask,” Diyari said. He looked like he had something else to say.

“Out with it eleven,” he said sternly.

Diyari swallowed, “Well, I… really want to get home, sir.”

“We all do-

“I have a baby this season, sir.”

They both stared at Diyari. “You do?” Haytham asked, “Since _when_?”

“We petitioned for one,” Diyari said.

Altair rubbed his face. “Eleven, why didn’t you tell me? I would have let you stay if I knew you’d been joined this season.”

“We didn’t want to make a big deal out of it,” Diyari said with a frown. “And I know you have a baby this season too, sir. Why should I get to stay and you don’t?”

“Because I’ve gotten to watch my first child grow up is why,” Altair did his best not to be angry. He was, a little bit. Not at Diyari, more at himself, for not knowing.

“We’ll come home though,” Haytham said. “We’ll come home and I’m going to tell _everyone_.”

“That’s another reason we didn’t say,” Diyari sighed and gave Haytham a look.

“We’ll get home,” Altair said firmly.

“I know,” Diyari nodded. “I know you’ll get us home, sir.”

“The God willing,” Altair said.

“He seems to like you though,” Haytham put in. “You get out of more close calls than anyone. If anyone’ll get us out of Utah, it’s you, one.”

“Thanks,” Altair nodded. “Now, speaking of, you need to be briefed.” They nodded. Altair pulled a, small, thin tablet from his bag of gear. “This is what we need to do.”


	5. Sweat, Tears or the Sea

Salt Lake City was one the single largest city in the entire country. Back before the Collapse it had mainly nestled around the great Salt Lake, but since then it had expanded and surrounded not only most of the Lake but also encompassed a good portion of Utah Lake to the south. The great salt flats were still there in the west, and the salt deposits on the lake itself, all situated in a valley in the lee of some of the Rockies.

Altair watched from out the window passionlessly as they drove on the freeway towards Salt Lake City. He could see the rising spires of the city growing nearer and the great Mormon Temple, one of the largest buildings on the continent, and one of the biggest churches in the entire world, looming over the entire city like a crouching tiger. When Utah became it’s own soverign nation and declared Mormonism the major religion and all non Mormons had to leave or convert, they’d built upon the original temple, making it larger, more amazing. It looked like one of the old European cathedrals, though so many of them were destroyed now after the decades of war the human race sustained after the plague became a very real thing.

Haytham was driving, he spoke Utarian, which was what the Mormons spoke. In five hundred years they’d sectioned off from the original English language that most of the Conglomerate spoke and it was mixed with Latin and some words that had just evolved that way. Now it sounded nothing like English and was actually a pidgin language, like Creole. Altair had never bothered to learn Utarian, but Haytham did. Good too or they’d be shit out of luck as Mormons did’t speak English, except as a second language.

“Are we there yet?” Diyari groaned from the backseat.

“We’ll get there when we get there,” Altair grunted.

“I hate cars,” Diyari pouted and shoved himself into the window.

“You could walk,” Haytham said.

“Shut up nine,” Diyari grumbled.

“Both of you shut up,” Altair said irritably. He hated cars too. They were so slow compared to their normal long range transport, which were the helis. Originally Chinese the Assassins had taken the designs and after five hundred years, after most countries didn’t even bother with rotary machines- it was all about jets- the Order had made something truly lethal. Silent, deadly, fast, had cargo space for more than twenty people, and bristled with weapons. It was a jet’s worst nightmare. The Order used their helis mainly for transport and extraction from hostile situations. In comparison cars were sluggish and took too long to get anywhere. A heli could have gotten them into the Utah interior in an hour after crossing the border, instead of four hours from the border. 

The car fell silent. The city grew closer, coming out of the fog like a great porcupine, the temple blocking some of the buildings from view. They stopped at a toll. Altair watched the Mormon from the passenger seat as Haytham traded money for change and then they were underway again.

“Can I just say again; I don’t like this,” Diyari said from the back.

“None of us like it,” Altair said, leaning back in his seat, hand near his mouth.

“It’d be different if we had like… _something_ here.”

“Tell it to the witch trials,” Altair said passionlessly. “Any one of us would get killed here just for _being_ here. They don’t even let same sexes join in this country,” he looked back at Diyari. “And you’re a Muslim,” he added.

“At least I’m not an atheist,” Diyari said right back.

Altair snorted and looked back front. “We all need to watch what we say here,” he said. “Might just be better if while here we don’t say a lot of anything. Bad enough only nine speaks Utarian.”

“So where’s the beacon?” Haytham asked, changing the topic.

“Inside the city.”

“Yeah, but _where_?”

“Support’ll lead us in. Don’t worry about it,” but Altair frowned deeply. The beacon had changed locations during the night. They’d only been alerted to it once they’d landed. They’d told Altair the new location, but not nine or eleven. Altair just had an awful feeling all over about it.

“Okay,” and they entered Salt Lake City’s traffic properly, taking an exit to another freeway to get into the older part of the city faster. The cars here were new, shining and looked more advanced than the ones they saw as ‘new’ on the outside. Utah had become a huge car manufacturing mecca a hundred years ago and produced advanced, and super clean, cars. Since the ban on Utah trade by the Conglomerate two years ago the other car companies on the continent had had to step up and fill the void, but the weren’t as good as Mormon made cars. Their own car was a bit older, a decade old model from Colorado which didn’t even have a car manufacturer, no one would look twice at them. Which was the point of course.

As the entered the city their ear pieces clicked, “Alpha?” support said, the cranky one, who wasn’t so cranky now after nine and eleven had verbally beat him a few hours ago.

“We’re here,” Altair said.

“Good. We’ve made a reservation for you at a hotel. You’ll be staying there the night.”

“We’re getting this done tonight,” Altair said.

“You’re to do recon today, the mission will be carried out tomorrow.”

“Support-

“This isn’t us. The Mentor doesn’t want _anything_ to go wrong. He’s instructed us to make sure nothing happens,” the calm one said.

Altair sighed, “Right, where’s the hotel?” there was nothing for it if the Mentor had ordered it.

“Who’s driving?”

“I am,” Haytham said, a few moments later he said, “Got it,” clearly they’d given him the instructions. He turned off the freeway and entered the city streets. It was a lot of stop and go traffic, but at least support was silent.

“This is it?” Altair asked, looking at the hotel.

“Woooah,” Diyari breathed, face up to the window.

“This can’t be right,” Altair frowned. “Support,” he said.

“Yes alpha-one?”

“ _This_ is where home base is?”

“Yes.”

“How the _hell_ did you manage this?”

The calm one chuckled, “If we’re sending you into a hostile country, might as well live it up, yeah?”

“I can’t park here,” Haytham said.

“Huh?” Altair looked at him.

“You kidding? We’re in a poj and this is like a four star hotel. We’d be picked out instantly.”

“Ah, right,” Altair nodded. “Find us a place to park, we’re going to ditch the car anyway. From now on we’re on foot or mass transport.”

“Uhg,” Diyari groaned. “Really?”

“I hate cars, grow up,” Altair said curtly.

“Can’t we just steal mopeds or something?”

“We’re not stealing _anything_ ,” Altair said, looking at them both sternly, especially Diyari. He knew his medic could hot-wire anything in less than a minute. For some reason during his pilgrimage it had been a useful skill. He didn’t know the circumstances behind _that_ though, you didn’t talk about your pilgrimage unless you wanted to and people didn’t ask. It was for you, and no one else. It tended to give field agents strange skills though, like hot-wiring.

“But one-

“No _stealing anything_ ,” he told Diyari pointedly.

“I don’t wanna take the fucking bus,” Diyari grumbled and sat back into his seat, arms folded across his chest. “I’m a fucking Assassin not a commuter.”

“Save it eleven,” Haytham rolled his eyes in his general direction.

“I wouldn’t get us in trouble I promise,” Diyari whined.

“Eleven, you bring it up one more time and I will honestly kick your ass, and then when we get home I’ll write you up,” Altair threatened.

“Yes, dad,” Diyari sighed a long sigh.

“Don’t make me turn this car around,” Altair said blandly. It made his men laugh.

“Okay, here we go,” Haytham said, parking out of the way a few blocks from the hotel.

“Good. Grab your gear and lets book it, figure out what we need to do to prepare.” They got out and took their gear out of the back of the car. Altair slammed the trunk lid down with a tone of finality before they started walking back towards the hotel.

—

Desmond blinked and stared. Munahid stared back. After a moment Desmond smiled. Not for the first time Munahid wished Altair hadn’t left him in charge of this kid. He would have rather gone to Utah than stay here with the kid. Munahid had no children, he didn’t _want_ children either. He wasn’t good with children. Utah would have been easier actually.

“What’re you staring at kid?” Munahid growled.

“You,” Desmond said with a wicked grin even though he was like ten fucking years old. Munahid frowned at him. “Your face is funny.”

“Shut up,” Munahid growled.

“Where’d you get all those scars?” the boy asked.

“Anyone ever tell you not to ask questions you don’t wanna hear the answers to kid?” Munahid asked the kid.

“I do want the answer though,” Desmond smiled slightly. Munahid sighed. “Tell me,” he said again.

Munahid eyed the boy. Fine, if he wanted to know, he’d know. He and Ehan didn’t tell people how they got the scars all over their faces. They’d done their pilgrimage together, they’d been thick as thieves in their levels, they’d stayed close even when they’d left the fortress. And of course now they were both on Alpha together, sure under One, but Munahid had never been the leader type.

“There’s a thing we do, where kids get to leave the fortress for a few years, enter the real world. Anything they want, they can do, on the Order’s dime with their allowance. It’s called a pilgrimage,” Desmond nodded. “Me and a friend had ours in Utah, way before all this… stuff,” don’t swear in front of the kid, “went down. You know anything about Utah?” he asked Desmond.

“Highly religious, extremist and conservative. Practice a branch of Christianity called Mormonism and was the second state to succeeded from the old United States of America during the Drought,” Desmond rattled off. “They’re against non Mormons and have been trying to take part of Colorado for the past decade with little success thanks to FRN and Texas involvement. They-

“Okay, that’s enough,” Munahid rose his hand. By the god, what was this kid? A fucking encyclopedia? “You know about the witch hunts?”

“There were fifty reported deaths, according to Utah officials. Real casualties are thought to number in the hundreds, including pregnant women,” Desmond frowned.

“Well this story, is before all that shit happened during the witch hunts,” Munahid said.

“Okay. You gonna tell me?”

—

Altair fingered his tags. Oblong, flat as paper and non reflective metal tags. He had three. One he kept in his boot, one around his neck, and the third was with Rauf, clinging to his own around his neck. Unlike pre Collapse tags they weren’t stamped, but instead QR codes that were actually a part of the metal themselves, not printed, but metal itself. So it couldn’t get flattened or erased, the code would always show up. Altair’s numeral code was printed on the top: A-01. It was his only actual designation and even when scanned the QR code gave you an encrypted file that only gave you a phone number for a phone in St. Adams for someone to call in the event of a death and hijacked whatever system you were using and relayed the fact that it had been scanned back to the fortress. Only the Assassins could break the encryption. It kept them safe, and anonymous.

He tucked his tag back under his shirt without comment. Every time he went on a mission he traded out the tag he gave Rauf. It was superstitious thing, no one questioned it because it was practically _normal_. Rauf always kept the tag he left behind on him even though normally he didn’t wear his tags anymore, since he was confined to the fortress. But when Altair was gone Rauf always wore them, Altair’s, plus his own, for luck.

“How are we?” Altair asked. Haytham was laying on one of the beds, Diyari was reorganizing his pack. They were all dressed in casual clothes, though Altair felt the familiar, comforting, press of his knife inside his sleeve and another on his calf under his pants. 

“Fine,” Haytham said, Diyari just nodded.

“Support,” Altair said.

“We’re here,” the nice support said.

“We’re in and secured. What’s our next objective?”

“The signal’s moved again. We’re currently tracking it down. Hold tight,” support with an attitude said.

“We can’t do recon like this support,” Altair sighed. He got no answer. Altair muted his comm. “Fucking support,” he bitched and shoved his tags back under his shirt.

“Hey eleven,” Haytham said from the bed, staring up at the pale ceiling.

“Wha’?” Diyari asked, zipping up his bag

“What you want out of the season?”

“Huh?” Diyari gave their number nine a look.

“Boy, or a girl?”

Diyari looked at Haytham, gave Altair the most bewildered look, then back at Haytham. “What?” he asked.

Haytham propped himself up on his elbows. “You and seven were joined in the season right? Well, what do you want? Girl, or a boy?”

Diyari looked at a loss for a moment. “I don’t know,” Diyari admitted. “I don’t think we want to know.”

“Huh,” and Haytham lay back down. “What about you one? You got a baby too. What you want?”

“I have two boys,” Altair said, “It’d be nice to have a daughter. What’s with the questions nine? Thinking about wanting to join the season?”

Haytham rolled over and looked at Altair, “I saw what the real world is like,” he said, of course, they all had. “You think I want a kid where they could get lost in that _shit_? One with fucking _witch hunts_ on pregnant women and you can’t walk down the street in St. Adams without getting looks if your skin is too dark?” Altair had to admit Haytham had a point on that last one.

“There’s a reason most of us come back,” Altair reminded him.

“Society is scary,” Haytham rolled back onto his back. “Not like the fortress where everyone has their place and knows their place. You don’t know _shit_ when you get out into society and the Order leads you to fend for yourself. Figure it out they told me when I was first allowed off the property. Figure it out, here’s your credit card and your allowance. There’s a reason my pilgrimage lasted seventeen months. Society is fucking _terrifying_. Like I want any kid of mine to deal with what I had to deal with when I had to jump right in,” Haytham was frowning at the ceiling.

“It isn’t that bad,” Altair said.

Haytham craned his head back and around, “You lasted twenty-two months,” Haytham said.

“It was a different situation.”

“Pfft, right.”

“I was going to stay,” and Diyari went still, Haytham stared at Altair with big eyes. “I was going to stay in society,” Altair said again.

—

"Utah used to not be so scary," Munahid said. "It used to be a rather peaceful and didn't get into trouble with Colorado. You probably wouldn't even know that, you weren't even a thought back then. They became more militant ten years ago. Before that there was pretty free rein in and out of Utah by non Mormons. They were rather liberal then, and looked like they might allow same sexes to join, but that didn't happen."

"Okay, but how did you get those scars?" Desmond asked, giving him an impatient look.

"Be quiet and I'll tell you," Munahid growled. Desmond pursed his lips at Munahid but said nothing. "Eighteen is when we're sent out on our pilgrimage and live in society for a few years, to learn about it, to integrate and decide if we want that life. You can stay out until you're about twenty-three or twenty-five. You can return whenever you want and if you do that's it, you're there, no take backs."

"What if you want to stay out?" Desmond asked.

"You can stay out, but you cut all ties with the Order. Your allowance is retracted, your access to the tower is taken away, no communication is allowed between you and the Order."

Desmond frowned, "That seems really harsh."

"We don't allow outsiders. We're rather isolationist, but it keeps us alive and successful. You are either committed to the Order, life, body and soul, or you are not a part of it. There is no between. Everyone gets to make their own choice," he added, "and everyone knows what it means to stay and what it means to go, there is no pressure one way or the other."

"Well that's nice I guess," Desmond said and swung his legs back and forth. "You said you were-

"I know," Munahid just cut him off. Fucking kid. "Me and my friend, Ehan, had our pilgrimage together. Same class, same age. It's common. We were going to go to California. Ended up in Utah," he frowned slightly. "There isn't much in Utah, just Salt Lake City and a few smaller cities."

"How did you end up in Utah?"

"We drove through it. It was open at that time, by the time we got there though..." he paused, "they were going through a change in their church's politics. The old head of church and state had just died, they were in the middle of putting a new one in it's place. Borders shut down, the entire city stopped. This was like, twelve years ago," and what a terrible time it had been since the new President had been put into power back then. "Ehan and I were stuck inside Utah when Joseph, the current President, came into power. It started to go down hill from there. After he gained power it became a conservative state again, non Mormons were persecuted, it was a bad time. I know some Utarian, not like Haytham does, but I know some. I helped get us out of most scrapes."

"Why didn't you just call the Order?" Desmond asked, leaning forward, listening intently.

"We had no way to do so. Contact is cut off when we enter society and until we come back the only way they even know we're still alive is by spending our allowance."

"So you did, I assume?" Desmond asked.

Munahid nodded, "We couldn't even get jobs in Utah. Ehan is a semi practicing Muslim, I don't really at all. All we had was our allowance. If something happened and we stopped using it they'd come looking for us, to make sure we weren't dead, or to collect our bodies," Desmond didn't even look remotely turned off. "We had to use them though. So we were stuck in Utah for," he thought a moment, "eight months. We finally got picked up when we ended up in the hospital after getting jumped by a gang of overly eager Mormon guys."

"But you're Assassins. You didn't kick their asses?"

"Can't do much when you're surprised and stunned. They held us down, some of them spoke English, though not very well. They said our kind weren't welcome here and had no right to be in their country. Needed to teach us a lesson they said," Munahid's mouth became another knife scar on his face as he paused. He didn't like reliving the events of his pilgrimage. It was still relatively recent. "So they held us down and cut us up, starting with the face. I have some verses from the Book of Mormon on my torso, I know Ehan has some too," and now Desmond looked uncomfortable. "They only stopped when the police came and scared them off."

"They took you to the hospital?”

Munahid had to collect himself before continuing. He'd told a few people this story. He and Ehan didn't like talking about it though. They'd barely been nineteen when it had happened for fucks sake. "No," he said. "They were going to let us bleed out because we weren't Mormons. A passerby called an ambulance. Our I.Ds were run, the Order was alerted to our condition."

"And then?" Desmond asked.

"They had us airlifted to a hospital in California. Once they released us we continued our pilgrimage."

"You didn't go back to St. Adams?" Desmond asked, curious.

"No."

"Why not? You and Ehan were all hurt."

"Because if we went back that would be the end of it. Our pilgrimage would be over. We were willing to suffer the scars to have freedom."

Desmond looked at him intently, serious. "I understand that," he sad after a few moments. "I wanted freedom too." Munahid didn't know quite what to think of that. He didn't comment, and was saved from even having to do so when someone walked into the room.

"Sir," it was Sarah, or Sally, he couldn't fucking tell them apart sometimes. Trouble with when there were twins in the Order, they were always identical. Sarah and Sally were painfully similar. Ash brown hair, seven EVs unlocked, both members of Alpha. Altair always kept them straight. Munahid wasn't so good at that.

"Yeah?" Munahid asked.

"Support's on the horn," she licked her lips.

"What's wrong eight?”

"They need you to talk to some Mormons sir. Or at least try to reach One."

"... Why? What happened?" he was already half out of his chair.

Sarah swallowed uncomfortably, "Support thinks something went sideways-

"Shit," Munahid swore and was the rest of the way out of his seat. "Watch the kid," he called over his shoulder as he headed for the support area in the bureau. This was so the opposite of good.

—

The room was quiet after Altair's confession. Most of Alpha knew the stories of each other's pilgrimages. Except Altair. He didn't talk about it, he didn't even act like he'd been on one. His has been short, even by short standards. Munahid and Ehan had lasted longer than him and they'd been sliced up by crazy, Mormon, extremists. What had happened on Altair's pilgrimage was much speculated by the rest of Alpha. He'd arrived back at St. Adams without warning, been debriefed and given down time, which was unusual. The next year he'd been shoved through a season. Altair knew the Order's reasoning on it, most people didn't. Twenty year olds didn't get kids unless they petitioned hard and long. He knew they hadn't wanted to lose whatever it was that made Altair so _good_ at what they didn't. He didn't hold it against the Order, they were looking it out for themselves, and he got Darim out of it, he couldn't be mad.

"Really?" Diyari asked him. "You wanted to stay out?"

While not a sin, most who left the Order were looked down on by those who stayed. It was seen as abandonment. You left your friends, your family, the only home you'd ever known and had to start your life over from scratch. It was hard. Staying in society was considered beneath most Assassins. "Yeah," Altair said without apology and pushed himself to his feet, turning support back on. "Give me good news support," and with that he ended the conversation. He saw curiosity /burning/ in Haytham and Diyari's eyes, but they asked nothing, said nothing.

"We got a trace on the beacon," they said.

"Great," Altair nodded.

"We're sending coordinates to your tablet, it's outside the city, near the mountains."

"Got it," he tossed the tablet at Haytham, who'd also been listening in on the conversation.

"This is recon only Alpha," the nice support said.

"Yes dad," Diyari was leaning over Haytham's shoulder.

"Don't get smart with me!"

"Okay, _lover_ ,” Diyari smirked and he and Haytham fist bumped for that one as support sputtered over the line.

"Found us a way. It's a hike if we don't take the car," Haytham said to Altair.

"We'll take it then."

"Okay," Haytham reached over and grabbed the keys from the bedside table.

"Gear up, we leave in five," Altair ordered, Haytham and Diyari nodded. He wanted this to be over with sooner rather than later and they weren't going to get this shit done sitting here playing tourist with their thumbs up their asses. Time to move and make a play. Altair's tags felt heavy around his neck for some reason. They only did that when something bad was going to happen.


	6. To the Hounds of Hell

Crying woke Altair up. A pitiful sound and it took him a moment to realize he was hearing it in stereo. Two people were crying. With a groan he forced his eyes open. But it didn’t do any good. He was blind folded, and blind folded well in a dim room so all he could see was darkness.  It took every ounce of his concentration for him to activate the twelfth EV. After a moment a picture started to build in his mind, using the crying.

He was tied to a post, naked. The room was twenty by fifteen and roughly   squared at the edges. There were no windows and one door at the furthest end of the room from Altair and the two others. One of them was tied up like Altair was, the other had been tied to a chair. One of them was missing part of his arm though he couldn’t tell how much.

“Hey,” Altair’s voice was raspy and his chest hurt like he’d bruised or broken some of his ribs.

“Dad?” came the pitiful question that worry down Altair’s spine. The voice was Diyari’s. Alpha made fun and called Altair dad to poke fun at him because he was older than all of them. But sometimes they called him dad for other reasons. Like when they were hurt, or they wanted someone to help them. “Dad?” he asked again.

“I’m here,” Altair said, though he had trouble breathing, it hurt too much to do so. Damn they must had been beating at him with a hammer to hurt him this much, since his body, skin, bones, nerves even, were hardened against normal impacts.

“I can’t see,” Diyari whimpered, “n-nine can’t talk.”

“It’s okay,” Altair said levelly. For Diyari to be this panicked he knew it was bad. He did notice that the other crying had stopped. Haytham knew he was awake. “Can you see nine?” he asked Haytham, no answer.

“They gagged him,” Diyari said.

“Can you move, son?” Altair asked and he got some rocking noise. “Can you see?” no rocking noise. No, he couldn’t see. “Why’d they gag him?” Altair asked.

“S-screaming out of turn,” Diyari said, sounding ill.

“Shit,” Altair sighed. “Which one of you is hurt?”

“We’re both hurt-

“Which one of you is missing your fucking hand?” he demanded.

There was silence and then some more muffled crying. “I am,” Diyari said once he’d pulled himself together a bit more. Altair cursed, “same hand and forearm and my foot,” he heard Diyari’s voice shaking.

“Bastard,” Altair muttered. “You bleeding out?”

“No. They packed it, wrapped it.”

“They feeding us?”

“Not that I know.”

“Fucking… when we get back I am shoving my boot so far up the Audi’s ass he’ll be able to taste it,” he growled, Diyari laughed weakly. “Fucking Utah,” he added and then feel silent when the one door opened. He turned his head to look towards it.

—

Munahid reached the support area in less than two minutes, taking the stairs nearly four at a time instead of waiting for the elevator. The support room was filled to nearly bursting with people. Support, tech, commanding officers, everyone’s eyes blazing to see the projected screens that in the normal sight were invisible. He brought up his own sight and turned up his ears while he was it. “A-six reporting,” he announced as he closed the door.

The bureau leader turned and looked at him, “Ah, good,” he motioned to him. “We’re giving you a briefing before sending you out.”

“What happened, sir?” he asked as he came to stand next to the bureau leader.

His commander motioned to the support next to him and a screen came to life in front of them, “Five hours ago A-one, nine, and eleven headed out for their primary operation, looking into a beacon that had been reactivated,” the display kept up with what he was saying and showed the last location of the beacon. “They did a standard recon of their primary objective twelve hours previous. Two hours ago we lost radio contact with Alpha in this location,” the map showed the area around the dot. “Ten minutes ago we received this message,” he nodded to support who put on a video feed. All action in the room stopped when it started to play, everyone feeling they needed to watch.

Three white men, clean shaven and proud, stood behind a naked man in a chair. Munahid recognized him instantly. It was Diyari. Diyari was openly crying and Munahid didn’t blame him. On the floor was a severed arm, _his,_ severed arm and a severed foot lying next to it. Diyari was bleeding openly, most of the ground covered in blood and who knew what else and shaking where he sat, tear tracks marking the only clean part of his face. One of the men suddenly spoke Utarian and a translation came up as text on the screen: ‘We have three of your men’. Munahid felt himself become enraged as they pressed a knife to Diyari’s neck, making him bleed even more and he shook even harder. ‘We know who you are’, the man said, ‘You will not interfere with Utah ever again. We will let these men go once they have paid for their sins and have been purified. If you interfere or come into Utah again for any reason these will not be the last men we kill in the name of God.’

The video cut out.

Munahid was trembling in fury. “Sir,” Munahid said, “If you don’t tell me I’m allowed to go get them you’re going to have all of Alpha go AWOL,” his voice was surprisingly level for how angry he was.

“I was just speaking with the Mentor before you arrived. Alpha leaves in one hour, new suits are being provided,” the commander said, “give Utah our regards,” and then Munahid was out the door after a stiff salute.

—

Sarah had A-12 making paper snowflakes in the rec room. Honestly did these men _not_ know what to do with small children. Once she showed A-12 how to make the snowflakes he took to them like a fish to water and was really good at it honestly, making each snowflake different and each one more intricate. They were all really pretty though very childishly shaped most of the negative space being diamonds and squares and a few times he asked Sarah to cut through the thicker parts of the paper because he wasn’t strong enough.

They’d started the sixth flake when the door opened. It was Sally, her twin, her face long and drawn tight. “There you are,” Sally said.

“Come look Sal,” Sarah beckoned to her sister, “Twelve does awe-

“Suit up, we’re moving out in thirty,” Sally cut her off and finally Sarah noticed something was wrong. Of the two Sarah was usually the more responsible one, the serious one but not exactly the smarter one. While Sarah had gotten into Alpha on talent Sally had gotten in on test scores they gave each cadet when they came home from their pilgrimage to see which unit they’d be put into or if they’d be put into some other area of the fortress that fit them. Sally had gotten full marks. No one got full marks. Not even Altair had gotten full marks.

“What happened?” Sarah asked.

“Suit up, heli will be on the roof in thirty,” and then her face was gone from the door.

Sarah frowned to herself and then looked at twelve who’d been watching them, “They’re in trouble,” twelve said.

“Huh?” Sarah asked, admittedly she was kinda slow on the uptake sometimes. Micheal always said she needed to listen to directions the first time. He said that but damnit _she_ was the one on Alpha. He was stewing in the Core all day while she was out doing shit.

Twelve looked at her, “One, nine, eleven,” he said, “something happened to them.”

“How do you know?”

“Sally was upset,” twelve frowned. “And she only gave you half an hour. You should go.”

“And what about you huh?”

Twelve grinned, “I’ll be fine. I’ll make snowflakes until you get back,” he said cheerfully and looked back down at the snowflakes.

Sarah laughed a little, “Okay kid. You behave, I need to go,” and she got up to do so.

“Bye bye,” he said and then she left him alone with his snowflakes.

—

Altair held his breath when they poured water over his head through the fabric. He didn’t thrash when they untied him from the post, since he was still bound, and shoved him to the ground. The ground was cold and made colder by the water. He just held his breath and lay still until the bucket was empty, then he calmly breathed out. Nothing pissed torturers off more than not being affected by their methods. His lungs burned, begging him to gasp, but he didn’t. He knew he could get air and that even water boarding allowed you to breathe if you were calm enough. They didn’t want to kill him, they wanted to torment him. He wouldn’t give them the pleasure of seeing him thrash.

Above him people talked in Utarian. Altair didn’t try and make out what they were saying. Whenever he visited Utah he always had a translator. He knew Haytham was listening though, carefully, even if he was hurt. They’d been quiet, because Altair had told them to be quiet. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Be stronger than they think you are. Torture was as much a mind game as anything else, and so was pulling through it. He couldn’t falter or his men would falter and then the Utahans would win. Then the others would break.

Altair was waiting for Alpha to come get them. He had no doubt they would. It wasn’t even a thought that they wouldn’t. Alpha never left their own behind. They were professional; the best. They would come. That was what he thought about when he heard them preparing another bucket and got ready to hold his breath.

—

Hearing Diyari scream when they’d cut off his arm and his foot had been bad. Haytham would never forget the sound of the Utahans bickering over how to get past Diyari’s hardened skin and skeleton before deciding to just break the bone with a hammer and  use a circular construction saw to cut through the skin. He hadn’t been able to see it but he hadn’t needed to. The audio was enough to supply his brain with plenty of ideas. He’d screamed with Diyari before they gagged him. He got to sit and listen while they cut his brother up and listen to Diyari cry after it, after they woke him up and put him on film.

They’d been in levels together, like Ehan and Munahid had been. Diyari had been his friend, was still his friend, though he’d left St. Adams soft and everyone expected him to work in the nursery, or maintain the armory. Whatever happened during his pilgrimage had made him hard and with a set of skills you didn’t just _stumble_ upon. Along with Altair’s Diyari’s was one of the more speculated pilgrimages, mainly because he said so little. He went to S.F. spent most of his time in Miami, traveled to the Republic of Cuba for a few years before coming back home. He came back nearly black and with a devil’s streak. He was not the Diyari Haytham remembered; he was better. He was capable of standing in place with Alpha.

Hearing Diyari scream and cry and even beg at one point sobered Haytham. He knew Diyari had seen some shit, he had the scars to prove it and he’d been on enough missions with Diyari to know for himself. But to hear him _beg_ made Haytham want to break. They’d begged as they cut his foot off and could only scream and cry while they cut his arm off. At least it was only one arm.

Now he had to sit and listen as they worked over Altair. Water boarding, and he heard them talking of how to cut Altair without the saw. It was hard to hurt people in Alpha, you went through so many treatments to harden your skin, your bones, your nerves, boost your immune system, train until you didn’t need to sleep for a week, didn’t need to eat, didn’t need water. Everyone said Alpha was indestructible. You couldn’t kill an Alpha, they always just stepped down out of the position. 

Sitting in a chair, knowing his turn was next Haytham didn’t feel indestructible. He felt weak and sick. And unlike Altair and Diyari he could understand the Utahans. They thought they were doing the work of God here, purifying the heretics. God damn he hated Utah. He wanted to just bomb the entire country and be done with this damn place.

Altair coughed softly after they finished again and he heard the chair scrape. Haytham didn’t have the twelfth EV like Altair did so he couldn’t even use his ears to see, but he could guess. They must be done with Altair and Haytham felt himself start to tremble. Especially when they took his gag out.

“The devil didn’t scream,” one said and Haytham felt ill. They wanted his screams, he was next.

“He’s a dark one,” another said, he sounded older, obviously the leader, “so sinful he doesn’t even feel the purifying holy water. It’ll take more than that to wash away his sins.”

“So the next one then?”

“What about the one we cut up?” a new one asked.

“He has suffered for his sins. Dose him in water and he will be cleansed anew.”

“Yes father,” though it was the priest sort of father. Haytham was still shaking. They stepped away, clearly to figure out what to do with him.

“Nine,” Altair suddenly said, his voice sounded wet, “these assholes speak English?”

“I don’t think so, one,” Haytham swallowed.

Altair said nothing for a moment, “Don’t be scared,” he said softly, reassuringly, “They’ll come.”

“They don’t know where we are,” the Utahans were still talking and Altair and Haytham were close enough to speak quietly to one another and go unnoticed.

“It doesn’t matter. They’ll come for us. So don’t be afraid.”

“I don’t want to be,” Haytham couldn’t stop his voice from trembling.

“All they can do is hurt you,” Altair said, “and scare you. You’ve let them win already. They aren’t Templars. They’re nothing. You’re _Alpha_. They should be afraid of _you_.”

“They should be,” Haytham agreed quietly.

“Don’t scream,” Altair said as hands were put on Haytham and they dragged his chair away from him. He heard water filling a bucket.

—

Rauf got a surprise as he came out of his classroom and Malik was there. “Oh, hello,” Rauf said as he locked the classroom with a swipe of his hand. “I thought you had a mission to lead.” Since Altair had been gone the last few days he and Malik had made friends. They had a lot to talk about, mainly how _frustrating_ Altair could be at times. And their sons. They were both those people who did _not_ shut up about their children.

Malik’s smile was a touch brittle, “There was… a complication,” he said.

Rauf swallowed, “Complication? But didn’t you tell me you were leading some of Alpha?”

“Yeah,” Malik waved it off, “Its been given to local support since they can assist with greater ease. Wanna go to the canteen with me? I could use a drink.”

“Malik,” Rauf said, his voice sounding hollow to his own ears.

“Yeah?” he asked, though looked ready to go and get that drink.

“Just who were you leading?”

“Just some of Alpha. I don’t know their names-

“Numbers,” Rauf said.

“Uh… one, nine and eleven,” and Rauf felt himself go pale, “You okay Rauf? Rauf,” Malik grabbed his shoulder, “are you all right?” he asked.

“I… What happened?” Rauf grabbed Malik back, “What happened to them?” he demanded.

“I can’t say, it’s classif-

“You tell me right now Malik,” he snapped, “Alpha one is Altair,” and he watched Malik’s eyes get huge.

“Oh,” he said, staring at Rauf.

“You tell me,” Rauf said seriously, “what happened.”

“I…” Malik looked around, “I can’t- not here not here,” since Rauf was a second away from yelling at him. “One of our rooms?” he suggested. Rauf nodded but he honestly didn’t trust himself to talk. “Okay, ah… I still want that drink, can I meet you at yours?”

Rauf forced himself to calm down, he was clearly freaking Malik out, and he didn’t want that. “Sure,” he all at once let go of Malik. “And maybe that drink is a good idea. We can go together,” he swallowed and let Malik lead him towards the elevator to take them up to the canteen.

—

The silence in the heli was oppressive. Even comms were quiet. Everyone was reading what was being projected across their visors about their mission. Hours ago their team had gone silent and now they were being sent in to get them. No one doubted that whatever had made Alpha one, nine and eleven botch the job had to have been a big deal since Alpha didn’t just _botch_ a job. They’d been given the command by the higher ups to do whatever they had to to get their lost members of Alpha back. They were free to kill and free to do whatever was required.

Munahid’s comm suddenly turned on for the first time in about two hours. Everyone perked up so it was a squad wide call. He checked the freq., it was local and upon closer inspection saw it was coming from seven; Jari. “I have an announcement to make,” he said after a silence that almost stretched on too long.

“This isn’t a celebratory mood right now seven,” three, Chris, said.

“This is a somber announcement,” Jari said. “Well rather, a somber request,” everyone was silent. “All of us are going in there, and we all know that anything that could take out one is bad news, let alone something that could take out one, nine and eleven,” he paused and they all heard the tremble in his breath. “I’m asking this in a worst case scenario I hope won’t happen, but I’m still asking it,” no one interrupted him they all knew it was serious. “This year me and eleven joined,” and there were a few happy or excited gasps around the comms, “and I just ask,” his seriousness brought everyone down again, “that is something happens to us. To either of us…” there was a long silence and Munahid knew Jari had just muted himself, too overcome.

“Promise we won’t tell them the embarrassing stories,” Chris said, “only the heroic ones.”

“Yeah,” four, Mira, said. “Not the ones where we don’t see you two for like three days because you decided to get high and forgot how to open your own door,” and then there was the strangest sound given the air that had been over them not a moment before: laughter.

“Or the time eleven and I were on a mission and he couldn’t sit,” eight, Sarah, said, pitching in and there was more laughter.

“Or the time we had to tell him, no, he wasn’t allowed to steal the Deriick,” and Munahid smiled at that one, he remembered that time and it had taken three people to get Diyari to get away from the expensive car they’d seen in St. Adams. In moments the entire comm line had devolved into everyone recounting embarrassing stories of the infamous couple of Alpha. Jari had his helmeted head in his hands, shaking with laughter and probably so ashamed everyone was bringing all this up.

“Alpha,” a new voice came online, “ETA is twenty minutes. Get ready for your drop,” it was their navigator, Nest.

“All right Alpha, you heard him,” Munahid said. “Lets cut the chit chat and prep. Everyone secure your things we’re going in fast,” everyone nodded and got up and started to secure weapons and check and double check their stuff. They all were wearing parachutes since they’d quite literally be dropping into Salt Lake City. Utah was a no fly zone and only at the altitude they were currently at could they avoid radar.

“But no really,” Jari said as they got everything together, “you tell our kid any of those stories and I’m haunting you,” laughter came from the comm from all over.

“We won’t,” Mira said, “because we’ll just make you do it,” and she drummed her hands on his helmet till he swatted at her.

“Alpha your drop is in five minutes,” Egg said.

“Everyone get ready,” Munahid ordered and they lined up according to number. Number had nothing to do with ability amid the squads, except One, you just got whatever number was next available. Kanwai, number two, was up front and Munahid would go last even though Sally, number ten, was the highest number. He’d jump after everyone else had. “Turn up your eyes and ears boys and girls,” he said and everyone turned on either night vision or IR and turned their ears up, support would only communicate with them over the special wavelength.

“Opening back doors,” Nest said and the back of the heli opened. Munahid heard exterior mics click on all around him. “This is your stop kids.”

“Go,” Munahid pointed out the back doors. Kanwai took off at a sprint and jumped gracefully out of the back of the heli. Chris was after her, jumping in a three-sixty and yelling at the top of his lungs, mercifully he’d muted his comm. Munahid watched as Mira swan dived off the back, also yelling, Ehan walked off and sank like a stone. Jari did his traditional back flip he always did because he liked to show off he _could_ do a back flip and the twins went at the same time after bumping their helmets together and made a heart sign at Munahid. Munahid rolled his eyes. No wonder Altair treated them all like his children.

“Close the doors,” Munahid told Nest as he let himself fall back into open air. “We’ll call you when we need an evac,” and he rolled over to face the wind.

They’d jumped at night and Salt Lake City went to sleep early. It was early early morning now and the city was dim, just little pricks of light showing in Munahid’s IR. His main sight was locked on Alpha who were doing their normal cowboy bullshit and striking poses or doing flips. They had almost two minutes of free fall from this altitude and they had to be serious. And after what Jari had said they all wanted to have a little fun before they got serious.

Munahid angled himself into a near straight dive and caught up with Ehan before throwing his limbs out like a star to match Ehan’s speed. Ehan was falling on his back, arms behind his head, ankles crossed. He waved as Munahid came over him. Munahid waved back. 

Once they hit a certain altitude Alpha regrouped but continued to dive, but now with none of their previous air of enjoyment. Now they were focused and the ground was closing in fast. They wouldn’t deploy their chutes until nearly the last moment. Munahid was watching his altimeter carefully, like he knew everyone else was watching theirs. It was an automatic deployment but you still didn’t want to get caught off guard. As the ground and city got even closer they fanned out some and spread their limbs to create some drag to slow them down.

Munahid felt and heard the ‘whump!’ of his chute as it opened and his speed was checked instantly. Around him he heard other chutes opening. They were headed for a park near the middle of the city and unlike old paratroopers from before the Collapse who had little to no control over their chutes theirs was fully flyable.

They landed in a loose group one after the other. Munahid hit and crumpled to the ground to absorb the intense impact. He didn’t even falter though and was standing a moment later and blinking at a particular spot on his visor. His chute got sucked back up into the back of his suit. He drew his weapon, a sword that looked like an old world scimitar, made of carbon and completely matte black, and silent as it came from the sheathe.

In moments everyone had landed and had their weapons either drawn or looked ready to. Munahid liked to have his weapon in hand when he was in Utah. Bad memories in this place that made the scars on his face and especially his chest start to itch. Ehan had his sword out too and Munahid didn’t blame him. He motioned to Alpha once they were all ready. They headed out in silence, a bunch of black shadows staying out of the street lights.

—

They’d gotten a bottle of tequila and brought it up to Rauf’s room. Personal rooms were like sacred spaces, every member of the Order had one, except novices who shared, to build camaraderie. Malik had only ever been in a few other personal rooms in his life beyond his own and so he couldn’t help but look around.

Rauf’s room was big, which wasn’t a surprise with all the things he had going for him, as rooms grew or shrank depending on your rank or awards. Incentive to be the best. There were some pictures on the walls oh him, or Altair, of Altair’s son, their son, some other people Malik didn’t know. They all looked very happy and for some reason that annoyed Malik. His room was also two rooms, a sitting area and the bedroom through a door. Malik’s room was only one room, most rooms were only one room. What the hell had Rauf done to get himself _two_ rooms? He wanted to ask but didn’t. It was rude.

“I’ll go get us some glasses, have a seat,” Rauf said and went into the other room. Malik couldn’t help but crane his head around to see through the door. Damn. Rauf had two and a _half_ rooms. The back room was divided into the bedroom and some other room divided by a screen that might have had some kitchen appliances or a private area of some sort. Malik couldn’t tell from here but Rauf did open some cabinets and came back with two shot glasses. Malik made sure to sit before Rauf came back. “Here we go,” Rauf sat them down on the table. “Now. Tell me,” he ordered.

“Ah ah,” Malik tutted, “Drink first,” and he poured two shots of the tequila. “Bottoms up,” he said and picked up his glass. Rauf gave him a nod and they knocked the alcohol back with a a hiss of a sigh.

“Okay,” Rauf said as Malik poured him another shot, “Tell me,” he ordered and took the next shot.

“Do you know anything?” Malik asked him.

“I know it’s in Utah and if it had ‘complications’ I’m going to need another shot to deal with this,” Rauf said and Malik obediently poured him another and finally took his second. “So?”

“Me and my partner were leading a small strike force into Salt Lake City to get eyes on an old beacon that had reactivated. They drove into Utah in an old Colorado car and were there for a day. We led them to where the beacon was supposed to be, they did recon.”

“And then?” Rauf asked, “Where was this beacon?”

“The location is strictly classified information,” Malik said.

“Malik,” Rauf said slowly, “I don’t normally do this but I can pull rank on you if you make me,” and he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. As he did Malik noticed a set of tags swinging around his neck. That was odd. Why did Rauf have tags? He hadn’t been in the field in _years_.

“I’ve been-

“Support,” Rauf’s voice was icy, “as a Master Instructor and a First Class Assassin I am telling you, right now, to tell me where that beacon was and where you led the strike force.” Rauf was a First Class? Not even Altair was First Class, only about six people in the entire fortress were First Class. They were men and women with a skill set good enough to put them on par with the Mentor. It wasn’t just in fighting either. Rebecca down in the Core, the infamous Red Queen, was a First Class Assassin. They were men and women who in the event of the death of the Mentor could and would be elected into the position by the lower Classes.

Malik physically couldn’t tell him no. He’d been trained too well. “Our initial reports put it outside the city. In a few hours it had changed locations and we tracked it to the Grand Temple,” Malik sighed and poured them both a shot. They both took it wordlessly.

“Then what?” Rauf asked, he was very quiet as he spoke.

“We led the strike team into the Temple.”

“You led three fully armored-

“No. They went in naked.”

Rauf closed his eyes and sat back, putting the back of his fist up to his mouth. His fist was shaking. “Okay,” Rauf said softly. “Then what?”

“We only had ears on them,” Malik said, “me and my partner led them how we could and we aren’t sure exactly how, but the Utahans knew they were coming. They ambushed the strike force and we heard fighting before one of our comms went down. We heard gunfire,” and he shuttered. Malik hated guns. Most people did. All it brought up were bad memories from the Collapse when the world nearly tore itself apart. Guns were illegal now, everywhere, except for the military. It was more common to see swords or knives strapped to people’s waists than anything and unlike guns the swords were natural, obvious, deterrents from people messing with you.

“Anyone die?” Rauf asked.

“None of ours,” Malik said, “you know you can’t really hurt Alpha.”

“Yeah,” Rauf leaned forward and poured himself another shot. He knocked it back like the tequila was water.

“We do know that the Utahans captured one, nine and eleven though. Half an hour after our last contact with the strike force we got a message through the remaining comm. It was someone speaking Utarian. My partner can speak Utarian, it was called up the chain immediately.”

“What did they say?” Rauf asked.

“They said that they found three sinners in their holy Temple and would wash them clean with fire and water. They would send us a proper message in time.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know-

“Malik,” he said sharply.

“I _don’t know_ ,” Malik said in a hard voice. “After that it was given over to the bureau in Marcusville. That was about an hour ago. I just got out of debrief before seeing if you wanted to get a drink.”

Rauf sighed and sat back heavily. Malik frowned and poured him another shot, and himself. They tipped their shot glasses and drank. “What do you _think_ will happen?” Rauf asked.

“The same thing you think,” Malik said, frowning slightly.

“That Alpha is going to go in and rip that place apart?” Rauf asked, still holding his shot glass near his face. Malik nodded silently. “Good. I hope those religious asshole burn in hell. Pour me some more, I can’t be functioning right now,” and he offered his shot glass to Malik. Malik did so without comment. He couldn’t imagine what was going through Rauf’s head. His partner and the other half of his son had been ambushed by religious fanatics in the Mormon Grand Temple and hadn’t been heard from after gun fire. It probably wasn’t a pretty picture in Rauf’s head, especially since Rauf didn’t strike him as the kind of guy who drank a lot. Or at all really.

“To Utah, going up in smoke,” Rauf said before knocking back that shot.


	7. I Hate Love

If anyone saw them they pretended not to. Jari had been on enough black ops missions despite his recent admission to Alpha to know that most people, when confronted with someone in an Alpha’s suit their first instinct was to just pretend they hadn’t seen them. Seeing them in the first place was difficult, normally their suits were black with patches of darker gray to break up their shape. They were meant to be shadow suits, but they could turn any color of camouflage needed or even use the colors of the surrounding area to blend itself into the environment. Alpha suits were the pinnacle of personal armor and not even some of the greatest nations in the world had things that could come close to ah Alpha suit. Faceless, matte, masks and a smooth helmet that melted into a full exoskeleton armored more on the front and back the sides open and flexible. Self sealing they took care to filter any foreign contaminate out of the air you breathed and even functioned in allowing you to breathe underwater. There were half a hundred sensors and electronics in the helmet and the suit, all designed to protect you, to give you the edge and make you more lethal than you already were. Looking at one it was obvious and someone walking around in an Alpha suit screamed danger.

Anyone they met averted their eyes and Alpha walked mostly undisturbed down the street, mainly sticking to the edges of the sidewalk. Jari’s entire body was vibrating and his suit kept pinging him about his accelerated heart rate. He forced his heart to stop being so fast and he watched the number drop. He was good with the fourth in a way most of Alpha weren’t. A noise cracked across comms, though not a word, just a sound and he looked towards who’d done it. Munahid was standing at the far end of the street with Ehan, their swords were out at their sides and Munahid was motioning to Alpha.

All the squads had their own, wordless, sign language, much like a normal military, only it was much finer. Everyone was in IR mode as they moved through Salt Lake City and were reading the obvious heat signature coming from Munahid. Signals meant different things at different temperatures, it was why you couldn’t be on Alpha without IR or the one to control your heart rate and thus your temperature. Munahid was telling them go; fast.

Jari didn’t think and he and Mira moved together and went around the corner and headed straight, he behind her, giving her cover. They were leading point now, crouched and running. When they rounded the corner Jari saw where they were; the Grand Temple. His eyes narrowed behind his visor but he did nothing out of turn, he just followed Mira. Munahid had signaled them; they were the ones on point this turn. They would lead Alpha up to the steps of the Grand Temple.

The Grand Mormon Temple was at once a religious epicenter of Utah as well as the state building where the president of the church and state lived and held office. The president was no concern to them though. They weren’t here for the president. They were here for retrieval and extraction; nothing more. Next time they’d kill the president. Probably. Jari was of the opinion they needed to take a more proactive role in Utah and help them sort out this giant cluster fuck they’d created for themselves. That was for another time though, another discussion of ethics and morals of the Order’s intervention in other sovereign countries.

As they got up to the large doors of the Temple he felt more than saw the others fan out behind him and Mira as Mira went up to the door. There was an annoying electronic lock on the front door of the Temple  but it was nothing Mira couldn’t crack. She’d been training to be tech before the masters had decided she’d get a shot on Alpha and had been pleased by the perfect fit. She crouched by the door and took a set of thin cables out from the back of her neck and with her knife popped open the front face of the lock. Jari looked behind them and without his EV engaged he wouldn’t be able to see the rest of Alpha, they were cloaked in natural shadows. With his IR they shone like dark red candles. He looked back at Mira. She was already withdrawing the cables from the box and back into the port in the back of her neck.

“As the Arabs say,” Mira’s voice said over the comms, standing, her back to Jari, “Open sesame,” and she pushed at the door. It swung open on silent hinges. “After you boys,” she said and stepped out of the way as the rest of Alpha came forward.

Jari stepped in first, drawing his short sword which was styled after ancient xiphos swords ancient Greeks used during the bronze age, and looked around. He dialed down his heart and turned up his ears until he could barely hear his own heartbeat and was instead listening to all the sounds around him, breathing as slowly as possible. Normally guys like Jari were given to other units, like Charlie, who were spies and loved guys like Jari who could nearly stop their hearts and drop their body temperature dangerously low. But he’d tested well with Alpha, and Altair had liked him. And really that was the only test that mattered. If Altair, A-One, didn’t like you, you weren’t getting on Alpha.

Jari listened, and while he could hear the whirl of security cameras on inspection with the twelfth EV he knew they weren’t looking at them. Jari closed his eyes and stepped further into the Temple letting the echolocation build a picture around him, each footstep showing him more and more.

There was no one here.

He held up his hand and everyone stopped, he signaled them to back up and opened his eyes, facing his unit. ‘There’s no one here,’ Jari signed to them.

‘Comms?’ Munahid asked.

‘Danger seems low,’ and he turned on his comm.

“Full status?” Munahid asked, the first word any of he’d spoken since they’d jumped from the heli. “Support,” he added so support could chime in if required.

“I see security cameras,” Jari said and blinked up a schematic of the Temple and with a few eye flicks had the cameras marked. “No life though.”

“Then let's proceed-

“No,” Jari said.

“No?” Munahid asked, confused.

“Support,” Jari asked.

“Yes, seven?” support said, not the cranky support now, they were in Colorado, and very nice sounding. Not mean at all.

“Did the others come across any resistance when they entered the Temple?” he asked.

“No,” she said, “they went in after service.”

“So the temple was empty?” he clarified.

“Yes.”

Jari looked at Alpha, “They know we’re coming. They’re waiting for us.”

“They can’t know we’re here,” Chris said.

“They sent us that video,” Jari’s hands became fists and it took him a few seconds to unclench them, “They were baiting us.”

“Can’t we just go in there and kill them or not?” Kanwai asked, annoyed. “I personally want to knock some Mormon heads for messing with our boys!”

“No, no,” Munahid said, “he’s right,” he nodded at Jari. “You think they’re expecting us.”

“And have an ambush waiting for us,” Jari said.

“And that’s your professional opinion?”

“Yes, sir,” Jari nodded.

“Support,” Munahid asked.

“Yes, six?”

“Where would you approximate the others being held?” he asked.

“Marking your maps,” she said and two levels down turned yellow. “According to our data they hold heretics down there.”

“Well our boys fit that bill,” Ehan said humorlessly.

“Give us a direct route,” Munahid said and a line appeared on the map, going down two flights to the holding cells. “What are our options?” and they were few. There was only one way in or out of that part of the Temple. Munahid sighed.

“What are we going to do six?” Sarah asked.

Munahid fingered the grip on his sword before sheathing it. Jari’s brows rose. For him to willingly put his sword away while in Utah meant he wouldn’t need it. “Three,” he said.

“Yes, sir?” Chris asked curiously.

“I’m giving you authorization,” and just by his body language, even though Jari couldn’t see his face he knew Chris was delighted. “Blow us a fucking  path to that cell. Eight, you assist in helping him lay the charges. four, disable the security, seven you’ll be helping her with that. Four, five, eight and ten, you’re on lookout, inside and out.”

“And you sir?” Mira asked.

“I’m going to sit right here and start working on my report I’m going to have to turn in on why I gave authorization for this maniac to use explosives,” and Chris laughed and no one was surprised. “Now hop to, I wasn this done in ten minutes,” he added.

“Yes, sir,” everyone said and then went about their assigned business.

\--

An explosion jolted Altair awake violently. He started and jerked against the bindings holding his arms and legs to the post he was tied to but nothing happened. The others were awake in moments. “What the hell was that?” Haytham asked and Altair opened his ears. The resounding blast was causing echoes and he quickly built up a picture. He promised himself when he got out of this he was training the twelfth until he could do it on perfect command like Jari could. The room was the same, they were all still blindfolded but they’d at least taken Haytham’s gag out.

“Party favors,” Diyari said, excitement in his voice. “Looks like the Mormons pissed off the wrong guys,” Altair shut off the EV.

“Who the hell gave three the authorization?” Haytham said.

“Six, obviously,” Altair sighed. “Idiot.”

“Why?” Haytham asked, “Anything to get to us.”

“Do you know how much paperwork he’s going to have to fill out?” Altair asked them. “You don’t just let a demoman like three authorization. You know that not even Gamma-Alpha wanted him?” Gamma-Alpha was the first squad of the rather large Gamma unit. They specialized in demolitions and pyrotechnics.

“What?” Haytham sounded surprised.

“Damnit six,” Altair grumbled.

“So you didn’t want them to rescue us?” Diyari asked.

“There is a reason three is the only guy we’ve had on Alpha in about fifty years,” he rolled his eyes under his blindfold. “If you’re good enough to be a demoman on Alpha it’s like letting a walking bomb do whatever they want.”

“But he’s trained,” Haytham said.

“This is the guy G-A didn’t want,” Altair reminded them, “You know why?”

“Why?”

“Too good.”

“Too good? How is someone too good?”

“G-A works as a team. Three is a show off-

“Well I could have told you that,” Altair could hear the eyeroll in Haytham’s voice.

“He’s a show off with explosives and does the work of four men without fucking up. He made G-A look bad and didn’t listen to orders from G-A-1,” Altair said. That had been an interesting conversation with G-A-1 he’d had a few years back because Chris was about to be kicked off G-A and thus all units if someone didn’t pick him up. Altair had tried him out and he worked well with them. He also listened to Altair, surprisingly. G-A-1 still hated him for getting Chris’ obedience where she hadn’t been able to.

“So you let him join Alpha instead?” Haytham asked, slightly exasperated.

“I had it under control,” and there was another explosion, this one closer. “He’s very good at his job but... a bit reckless. I don’t think six really knows what he got himself into. Also,” and there was another one, this one sounded even closer and made the room shake, “we’re in the Grand Mormon Temple for the God’s sake! Six and I are going to get chewed out for this,” he sighed.

“I love how you’re more worried about paperwork than us getting out of here!” Haytham snapped.

Altair turned his head in Haytham’s direction, “Because I never doubted,” he said very calmly.

“Yeah well-

“Stop fighting,” Diyari cut in. “I lost my damn arm so really I should be the only one complaining about anything here. Now both of your shut up and wait like good damsels in distress,” and Altair bit back a few choice words for his medic.

There was another explosion, this was rocking even the ceiling and if he hadn’t been tied to a chair Altair would have fallen by the force of the explosions. They waited and there was silence. Then gunfire and despite himself Altair held his breath. He’d been grazed by a few bullets during the ambush that had attacked them before they’d just overloaded the three of them with tasers. Quite an achievement really since their bodies could take nearly twice the amount of volts required to down them than a normal person. Gunfire continued and in the distance than heard yelling. Then silence fell and the silence was suddenly too loud.

In the silence the three of them waited until there were two small bangs as the door was blown off it’s hinges. “And THAT’S how you do it!” they heard Chris yell over his external speakers, sounding way too pleased with himself.

\--

As Alpha streamed down the hallway they left dead bodies in their wake. Mira brought up the rear of the unit as they went into the holding cell where the others were. Altair and Haytham were bound standing but Diyari was sitting because of his lack of foot. “Eight, ten, watch the door,” Munahid ordered as they entered the little room, it suddenly becoming too crowded with nine grown adults in it.

Mira smiled to herself as Jari broke ranks instantly and went over to where Diyari was tied up and removed his blindfold. Diyari cried tears of joy once Jari made his visor transparent. She tore her eyes away when Jari pressed the clear visor against Diyari’s forehead. Munahid was giving orders but she hadn’t heard her number so was content to just not get in the way. She did that a lot. She wasn’t the best fighter or really the best anything, she just made the electronics work and let the others go ahead of her.

Munahid tore off Altair’s blindfold. Their One smiled, “What a sight for sore eyes you are,” he said as Munahid cut the ropes so he could stand. Ehan was doing similar things to Haytham and the younger man sagged in relief once he could stand on his own two feet again. “Took you kids long enough to get here,” One said, rubbing the feeling back in his wrist. “Anyone hurt?”

“No, sir,” Munahid said.

“Good,” One said, “Someone find me a fucking pair of pants,” and in three seconds One had gone from captive of the Mormons to Alpha-One, the baddest sonuvabitch in the NCC. Despite some scrapes he wasn’t very hurt and even his cuts were superficial and already healing, they didn’t know how to get through his skin. Mira had to admit it was pretty hot, and not even the fact that he was naked. His power was hot and Mira wished she was a bit older and maybe also a guy, since it was no secret what One’s preference was. She wondered how many time he’d given the men of his unit hard ons, or who had them now. She chided herself for that.

“How you fairing one?” Munahid asked him.

“Good. Could even say great. I’ve had worse experiences during my pilgrimage. Now really where the hell are those pants?”

“I have three getting you some,” Munahid said. “Other than Diyari do you need medical attention?”

“I don’t,” One looked at Haytham, “you alright son?” he asked.

“Yeah dad,” Haytham was leaning on Ehan though, looking tired, “I’m fine.”

“Good,” and then he said, “Someone give me your helmet.”

“Seven,” Munahid said over comms, the man who hadn’t left his place in front of Diyari, or even looked away from him suddenly shot his head up and looked over his shoulder, “Give one your helmet, you don’t need it.”

“Roger,” and Jari popped the seal on his suit and took off his helmet. As he did Christopher came back in and handed One pants. One put them on and then Munahid handed him the helmet. One crammed it onto his head and Mira knew it was a tight fit, then the helmet whirled softly and expanded to fit his head.

“All local comms do you read me?” One asked.

“Roger,” came the resounding response.

“Great. Support, get me in contact with our evac,” and then he was talking to support inside his helmet and then also probably Egg and Nest. “We have evac in five minutes,” One said. “Now,” he turned and looked at Jari, “Seven, give me your suit.”

Seven turned and blinked at him in confusion, “What?” he asked.”

One took off the helmet and threw it at him, “Give me your suit. You won’t need it.”

“What?” Munahid asked now.

“Me, nine and eleven still have a primary objective; locate the beacon. We found the beacon.”

“One you can’t be-

“Egg is going to land the heli in front of the Temple in five minutes and in that time we’re going to get seven, nine and eleven out there and into it. No, seven, give me your suit,” he ordered.

“But sir,” Jari started, “you can’t think you’re up to-

“Boy, do I have to rip it off you or you going to do it?” One demanded and Mira grinned. Yeah, definitely hot when One took charge.

Jari’s mouth went thin then he put his helmet on, it whirled and fit back to his head. He was muted as he logged out of the suit and everyone watched as the overlapping ribs that created the armor on his back opened and his movements slowed. Alpha suits were powered to help carry the load of the metal and electronics and unpowered you were slower and less flexible. Jari unlocked the two straps on his arms and then the suit sighed and he stepped out of it. The top fell forward at the waist while the lower half and arms went rigid. Last he took off his helmet and finally stood there barefoot in just his undersuit, a skin tight, black, leotard with implants that gave feedback to sensors in the helmet and also helped for a more snug and comfortable fit in the suit.

“You sure sir?” Jari asked, “I mean you’re going to wear a suit naked?”

“I have had worse chaffing in my life,” One said and took the helmet from Jari and put it on and stepped into the legs of the Alpha suit. The electronics whirled and Mira opened her ears to not just the higher noises but also to the electronics. She was effectively support on the field and she always found the sound of an Apha suit powering up to be one of the best sounds. It wasn’t a sound she could describe really. It was just really pleasant and calming to her, she liked the sound of electronics, it sounded like singing to her. She’d talked to other support about it and they thought it was weird, some techs understood. She wondered in core programmers heard the singing too.

“Calling all local comms and support, you hear me?” One asked as he put his arms into the suit and the back stitched itself back up his spine.

“Roger that, One,” Munahid said.

“Good, good,” One said and turned on his external speakers. “Now, seven, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to help eleven to the landing zone. Five you help nine.”

“I can walk, I can walk,” Haytham batted at Ehan when he tried to help. “And I’m fine. Let me come.”

“Sorry kid no can do,” One said.

“But-

“Not that I wouldn’t love your help. It’s just there aren’t any spare suits and you’re actually naked. So you’re going to sit this one out and help seven with eleven in the heli. I expect you both to be well behaved and listen to eleven when he tells you what to do.”

“You mean between them making out?” Haytham asked.

“I did say I expect you to be well behaved, there are spare clothes in the heli I expect you all to wear pants the entire time,” and Diyari was totally mortified, even more so when the others laughed. “Now we have two minutes until the heli lands and we need to be out there to meet them. They’ll be landing for ten seconds and then collect us once we’re done. Am I understood?” he clarified.

“Yes, sir,” Munahid said.

“Good. Alpha, let’s move out,” and he made a hand signal before stepping out of the room where barely five minutes previous he’d been a prisoner. Mira followed happily between the twins. This was why she loved Alpha.

\--

If this mission didn’t give him a headache nothing else would. Altair suppressed a groan when he saw the damage Chris had wrought on the Temple. He was going to get an earful for this and it wasn't even his fault! He was going to be giving Munahid shit duties till the end of time for letting Chris have free reign in the Temple.

The hall leading out of the containment cells was more or less covered in bodies, one of Wooo was missing his pants. Altair didn't worry about that. He was sure the Mormons were preparing for their next strike and he needed to get his two wounded onto the heli and away from here before anything else happened. The explosions seemed to have deterred the Mormons for now though and no one stopped them as they made their way to the grand front of the Temple.

"Support," he said, muting alpha as they went.

"Yes One?" Altair liked their new support, she was very nice, not like the cranky one they'd been riding with for a while for some reason.

"Show me where you guys put my last location before the stoke team was compromised," he said as they left the underbelly of the Temple, walking through a hole in the wall, the heavily enforced door ten feet away and untouched.

"Done," she said and the map was updated. "Also the bureau leader wants to talk to you."

"Patch him through," Altair said and then opened comms to their evac, "Egg what is your ETA?"

"Dropping now, will land in forty five seconds," Egg said.

"I have three passengers for you. I'll call for you when the rest of us need a pick up."

"Roger that Alpha-One," Egg said as Altair motioned for his men to file out the main door which so far was the only one he'd seen opened with something other than explosives. Probably their girl genius Mira.

"Alpha one you are getting on that transport," the bureau leader said.

"No can do sir. Primary objective is still live. I won't be leaving this place until the beacon has been retrieved," and he could see the heli descending from the black sky above them.

“That is a negative Alpha-One. You are getting on that heli-

“No, sir, I’m not. Before we were compromised we located the beacon. It was one of ours.” The heli landed to silence over the comm. The heli’s back opened and Jari walked up the ramp, carrying Diyari under his knees and back.

“That doesn’t matter Alpha-One. You’re to return to base.”

“Negative,” Altair said, watching Haytham board after Jari, looking grumpy. The heli stalled, clearly waiting for something, probably an okay from the bureau leader. “Egg, this is A-one, all are aboard.”

“I’m waiting for confirmation from support,” Egg said, sounding ill at ease, clearly not wanting to piss either of them off.

“Support this is Alpha-One, you give Blue Jay clearance right now.”

“Negative A-One-

“Give me the bureau leader again,” Altair ordered. “Alpha will not be leaving Salt Lake City without the beacon. Is that understood?” his voice grew harder as he spoke.

“You get on that heli right now Alpha-One,” the bureau leader said sternly.

“The beacon is from the Asian fortress and pregnant. We will not be leaving Salt Lake City without the beacon. You can write me up later if it makes you feel better but you get this heli off the ground right now or when I get back to Colorado I will be writing you up for interference with an Alpha designated mission. In the field only First Class or the Mentor have authority over my decisions,” he’d let Blue Jay listen in on this was well. “Now. Blue Jay, you’re airborne, we’ll call you once we’ve located the beacon and need extraction. Support keep the bureau leader off the comms I can’t have incompetent bureaucrats undermining our primary objective,” and then he muted support though he’d get a ping if they contacted him and opened local comms to Alpha. “We’re going back in there,” he ordered and tugged Jari’s short sword out from the sheath on his thigh.

“Yes, sir,” came the reply and they waded back into the Temple.

“Support I need a route to the beacon,” he ordered.

“Routing,” support said and to the side his map lit up with a path. He altered it, changed it, accounting for blown walls and walls that would be blown then clapped his hand across the back of Munahid’s helmet and transferred the map to him. He’d spread it to the rest of Alpha.

“Four, up here,” Altair ordered and gave the girl an electrically locked door. She popped out her wires and hooked up. “Everyone on thermals, blow any lights you see,” Altair said his visor clearing and his eyes took on a red pupil. He didn’t need to tell everyone that there were people behind this door, they could all see the thermal reads through the door.

“Clear,” Mira said, unhooking from the electrical lock and stepping back. Altair motioned for Sally and Sarah to take point. He loved twins honestly. They were always trained together, even ones as different as Sally and Sarah. The others stepped to the side of the door as the twins took the front and Altair gave them a count of three. Then they shoved the door open and were met by gunfire. Altair’s jaw clenched and watched the twins perform a series of acrobatics that would have left a gymnast impressed. Guns were knocked out of hands and Alpha swarmed through the door at the sound of close combat to offer lethal retribution.

The men behind the door were taken care of in about fifteen seconds and then they were moving, everything about them silent and low and they broke every light they came across helping their dark camo blend in and make them invisible. Doors were kicked open, unlocked or walls blown open when the door was difficult. Altair wasn’t afraid to use every member of his team to their full potential now and they were like professionals and executed each motion with trained excellence. Every man was put down like the dogs they were with silent precision until they came to the last door.

Altair motioned to the others and Mira came up again. They left a dark, bloody, corridor in their wake to this door and without missing a beat Mira hooked into the electrical lock. The rest of Alpha stood watch over her as she sank into the circuitry. It took her nearly a minute before the lock beeped and she quickly disengaged and they moved around to protect her. Mira was support in an Alpha suit and everyone knew it and knew she wasn’t much help in a fight with guns like this fucking Mormons were using.

There were heat signatures behind the door and Altair gave the twins and Ehan the signal they ran the door and Ehan pushed the heavy metal door open enough for the two slight women to slip through. Gunfire and Ehan shoved it open the rest of the way and they rushed in. Altair caught a flailing Mormon by the wrist and snapped it as he brought the leaf shaped blade of the short sword he was using up to cut open the man’s throat. There were only four Mormons in here and they were easy picking.

“Support, we’re in the room with the beacon,” Altair said.

“It should be there,” they said.

“Spread out, find the beacon. She’s here, somewhere,” he ordered and Alpha went in different directions in the large room, every few feet was a door that led to a cell with a mat to sleep on and a bucket to piss in. Better accommodations than what he’d been in not twenty minutes ago.

“Sir!” Chris called over comms, “Found her,” and Altair went over to the door he was at. All the doors had a viewing window you could open and look inside. Sure enough there was the woman, she was tiny but had fierce slanted, black, eyes and dirty black hair. She had pushed herself up into a leaning position and the swell of her stomach was very obvious.

“Get this door open,” Altair ordered and Chris didn’t need to be told twice. As Altair stepped back Chris took out a can, shook it, and then sprayed it on the hinges.

“Five, I need you to come and grab somethin’,” Chris said and Ehan came but stood back as Chris pressed a small device the size of a thumb nail into the foam, which was starting to harden, and then he also stepped back. “Fire in the pit,” he activated the device. There was a sharp snap as the foam exploded and Ehan was there in a moment to grab the door before it crashed to the ground. He and Chris lowered it to the floor and Altair walked across it into the cell.

“Hello,” Altair said.

“Who are you?” she spoke Korean, which luckily was one of the languages Altair spoke. Though it was one of the few languages still around so it made sense he knew it. After the Collapse entire languages became dead as people started to group together to rebuild. The five major languages were English, Chinese, Korean, German and Arabic. Every other language was considered minor or dead, the world unable to sustain so many languages with so few people. It was easier to assimilate into the major ones than fight it. Altair was a bit rusty on his Korean though.

“Alpha-one of North American fortress. Who you?”

“Kappa-six,” she said.

“Well Kappa-six, we’re here to rescue you.”

“About time!” she snapped and Altair chuckled.

In English he said to his men, “Who wants to carry Kappa-six?” he asked.

“I will,” Munahid said and came forward, “though I don’t speak... that,” he added.

“Six, this is Alpha-six,” Altair said to Kappa-six in Korean. “He’s going to get you up and help you.”

“Six and six?” she smiled at him slightly and she looked a lot less dangerous when she smiled, almost pretty.

“Yes,” he nodded and to Munahid he said, “She knows,” and then he turned away from Munahid and contacted Blue Jay. “Blue Jay this is Alpha-one requesting immediate evac.”

“Bit busy A-one,” Nest said.

“What’s the problem?”

“We got military birds on our six. Give us a few minutes to get rid of them.”

“We’ll be topside in five.”

“Roger,” and he cut the connection.

“Everyone ready?” he asked.

“Sir,” and there were nods.

“Good, six?” he turned to Munahid and Kappa-six. He’d decided the best idea was just to carry her though she looked a bit insulted that he was, but wasn’t complaining either.

“Ready, sir,” he nodded.

“Alright, lets get out of here kids,” and he led the way out of the big containment room and through the dark halls back up to the Temple proper. They met some instances where the Mormons showed up to fight them but they were cut down quickly. They made it outside the Temple in less than five minutes.

“Blue Jay we’re waiting for that evac,” Altair said.

“On our way sir. Just had to give the Mormons some parting gifts, if you catch my meaning.”

“Roger,” he nodded and ordered Alpha into a perimeter around Munahid and himself as well as Kappa-six.

A few moments later the heli landed and they boarded. “We’re set for take off,” Altair said to Blue Jay.

“Hold on to your butts,” Egg said, “we’ve still got birds inbound and they’re wanting grilled Alpha for breakfast.”

“Support you got helis inbound?” Altair asked as the back closed and Blue Jay jerked into the air and rose in a quick and smooth line.

“Red Dog and Hell Carrier are inbound Alpha-one,” she said.

“Everyone strap in,” he ordered as Alpha did so, Munahid helping Kappa-six fit the straps around her stomach without hurting her. Altair sat and strapped in. He was sitting next to Diyari who was awake, if barely. He was clothed now, the long sleeve on his right arm was tied up against his stump. “You okay kid?” he asked the amputee.

“Yeah dad,” he swallowed. “I think I lost more blood than I though. Moving me made my body realize I didn’t have as much as I needed.”

“We’ll get you some blood once we’re back in Colorado,” Altair said.

“We going to make it?”

“Yeah.”

“Had some crazy flying earlier,” Diyari swallowed again.

“We got military birds on us. Mormons are pissed.”

“Oh great, angry Mormons,” he laughed weakly.

“Two more helis are inbound. We’ll make it,” Altair promised.

“Really?”

“I lie to you yet?”

“No, sir,” Diyari said.

“I told you,” Haytham suddenly said, across from them as the heli suddenly banked hard to the left, “The God like Alpha-one.”

Diyari laughed a little, “Yeah,” he looked at Altair, “lucky me I got you as my commander then huh?”

“Oh yeah, all luck,” Altair ruffled his hair and then grabbed his harness as the heli jerked and barrel rolled. “Support where are Red Dog and Hell Carrier?”

“On top of you,” and on cue they heard something explode outside the heli, rocking it. From the cockpit they heard Egg and Nest whoop loudly and took the heli in a sharp about turn and fire a few rockets.

“Alpha this is Blue Jay, we apologize for the rocky flight but we’re now past turbulance and our flight will carry on uninterrupted. Thank you for flying with Blue Jay,” and Altair chuckled at Nest’s antics. Alpha grinned at each other and the fly back to Marcusville was light.

\--

Rauf woke up to a hangover. Not just any hangover a monster of a hangover. It hurt to exist and this was why he didn’t drink. He and Malik must have drunken at least half the bottle in shots last night. It had been brutal. His clock was still going off though, telling him he had to get up and get ready for class. He turned it over and went back to sleep for a bit.

He woke on it own about half an hour later and stared at the empty bed beside him. Altair had his own room and sometimes he slept there so it wasn’t always occupied, but there was a stark difference between Altair sleeping in his own room and him on a mission. The other side of the bed seemed so far away and he pressed the flat of his palm where Altair’s shoulder would be with a frown. At least he’d slept in his own bed and hoped he wasn’t too much of a drunk around Malik. That would have been embarrassing.

After staring at the empty bed he sat up, slowly, and got up slowly and went to dress. He didn’t have time for a shower now and just pulled on his instructor uniform and left, dialing down his eyes as he did. Normally you would dial your eyes up to see in the dark or in infrared or even to go into classic but you could also dial them down if you were suddenly exposed to bright light. Rauf did that now to save his poor head. He went down to level twenty-nine for a brief, tasteless, breakfast before going down further to level twenty-one where his classroom was.

There were ten classrooms, and ten instructors, one per room, and one class per level. Rauf taught the ninth level of novices everything they needed to know in this level. That included physical training and academics. His students were incredibly well behaved too, as he’d expect from seventeen year olds, a year before their tenth level and two before their pilgrimage. He got to his classroom, a handprint unlocked and opened the door, and he went inside. Rau went to the podium terminal at the side of the class and accessed it, tapping his code into it to unlock it and giving him access. The room shimmered and the white panels shifted until it took on his default look for his classroom, a large garden with a fountain and benches all facing him. He’d designed this garden because he liked his class to be peaceful.

The teenagers started to come in. Each level, and thus each class, was usually less than two dozen and they were all the same age and all had the same birthday but they all couldn’t be more different. Rauf knew each of them and knew their strengths. Next year in level ten they’d be working forward towards their placement testing at the end of their level and then allowed on their pilgrimage, when they got back they’d be tested again and between those two tests would be given their assignment where unless outside forces interfered they’d do for the rest of their lives. Rauf had had that happen to him. He’d been put on Delta, D-three, when he’d come back home and been there for a while before he personally requested to be able to fill the spot of an instructor who’d stepped down. That was almost ten years ago now.

His students took their seats on the benches, talking and laughing to each other. Rauf stood at the podium, leaning against it, his eyes still dialed way down. Once the last boy had come in, almost late, Rauf straightened a bit. “Today,” he started and looked down at the podium and the classroom interface, “we’re going to relax,” and he changed the room into a large field full of rolling hill, it was dark and the stars were out.

“Relax?” someone asked.

“Yes,” Rauf tapped in a quick code and he saw everyone’s eyes light up when a little white ball of light appeared in front of them. Rauf was giving them free reign to manipulate the room however they wished within the set parameters of the room he’d chosen. “Don’t tell the other instructors,” he added, pressing his finger to his lips. His students nodded quickly and Rauf ejected the tablet that connected to the podium interface so he could have it mobile and sat down on the grass, letting his eyes dial back up. He hadn’t checked his messages before coming down here but now he did, boredly.

Beta was getting a new member and three people were leaving Foxtrot to work in other jobs and a few messages from his friends. But he came across a message that made him pause. It was a forwarded message, which wasn’t unheard of, but the original sender was surprising; Red Queen. Who the hell did he know that knew the Red Queen? He checked the local sender and his brows rose. Malik? Malik knew the Red Queen. How did he know the Red Queen? He was just support. He frowned and opened the message.

‘You asked me to tell you the outcome cause you felt responsible. Well the bad news is that one of them lost their right arm and foot. Good news is that other than that and a few scrapes Alpha made it back to Marcusville. I don’t have more information than that I can share. Please don’t ask again, I know you’re Shaun’s friend but the both of us could get in trouble for this. -RQ’

Rauf read the message three more times before he understood it. Malik had asked the Red Queen- the fucking Red Queen, head of the Core Programmers and master of the fortress and all comings and goings of everything- to tell him if Alpha made it safely back to Marcusvilla. Rauf’s heart soared then it crashed when he read it again and read the part about the missing limb. Who? Who was missing a limb? It didn’t say. His heart hammered in his chest furiously and he made himself calm down. What could he do?

He couldn’t do anything. All he could do was feel relief. Be relieved, and wait.

 


	8. Think Like You

Kappa six’s name was Maelin, which she told Altair once they’d landed back in Marcusville. In the Bureau she refused to let Munahid carry her but did let him help her to the med ward and she looked very awkward and uncomfortable with a pregnant stomach. Diyari was taken to an OR so they could try to help his severed limbs and start his blood transfusions. The doctors tried to fuss over Altair but he just barked at them until they left him alone and took care of his men first and he stood by Maelin’s bed while a doctor hooked her up to some machines and took some blood still in his Alpha suit, arms folded. He wouldn’t move until everyone else had been assisted and stared Haytham down to get him into his own bed for the doctor’s to check him over.

“Sir,” Altair looked over at Munahid, he was standing on Maelin’s other side, his helmet off and it under his arm, “everyone else has been seen to. So I must insist that you allow the doctors to check you over.”

“Very well,” Altair sighed and sat on the other bed next to Maelin’s. She was watching him with her sharp dark eyes. “Alpha-one, prime, logout. Shutdown,” he said just to his suit and popped the seal on his helmet. The back ribs rattled open, fanning off his spine and he groaned. The ribs that made up the armor on his back could be very tight and an undersuit was a padding between them and your skin. Altair didn’t need to look to know that he had angry red marks on his skin from them in the woven pattern of the panels. He put the helmet on the table next to him and with a bit more slowness than he was okay with he took off the gloves and in the shut off phase an Alpha suit could be taken off in pieces. He dropped each piece onto the ground before having to manually unwind the knee high armored boots and finally sat on the bed in just that pair of pants.

“How’s Diyari doing?” he asked Munahid as a doctor came to poke and prod him.

“He’s in surgery to ensure that his limbs don’t become infected and going to start him on blood infusions with his type until they can replicate his own.”

“Good- ah get that shit off,” he knocked the heart monitor off his arm, “You wanna hear my heart turn up your fucking ears,” he didn’t like hospitals. It was why he usually only let  Diyari look him over after a mission, in a room that looked nothing like the med ward. But Diyari wasn’t around.

“Sir it’s standard procedure,” the doctor said.

“I’m Alpha-one, standard procedure can suck my dick,” Altair said, the doctor gave him a look, “Run your damn tests but unless you’re taking blood don’t put anything on me.” The doctor gave a sigh, but nodded. “And the others?” he turned back to Munahid.

“Haytham has some scrapes and some cuts on his chest,” he heard the hard, angry, way Munahid said that, “It looks like the start of characters. If we hadn’t come no doubt you’d all be sporting verses from the Book of Mormon,” and Munahid scratched his cheek on one of the three lateral scars on it.

“Well good you did, wouldn’t wanna steal your and Ehan’s thunder,” Altair smirked and Munahid rolled his eyes.

“None of the rest of Alpha sustained ay injuries though Chris is complaining about ringing ears.”

“Because you let him blow shit up!” Altair scolded him and didn’t notice as the doctor pricked him to draw some blood. “You’re filling that paperwork out on your own by the way,” he added.

“I know,” Munahid groaned, “I started it before he even did anything.”

“Smart,” he glanced at Maelin, “anything on her?” he asked.

“Tech and support are trying to get in touch with the fortress but so far no luck. Someone who speaks Korean is going to be showing up soon to have her answer questions for the bureau leader.”

“Well shit, I speak Korean,” Altair said.

“Someone who speaks it better than you,” Munahid said humorlessly. Altair made a face at him.

“Maelin,” Altair said, she’d never stopped looking at him, “someone’s going to come to ask you some questions,” he said in Korean, which had come back to him during the trip from Salt Lake City to Marcusville and he’d spoken to her.

“Do they speak better Korean than you?” she asked.

“Ouch,” he grinned, “probably yes,” he nodded.

“Good,” then she looked down at her body, “Can they get this out of me?” and she looked at Altair seriously.

“Excuse me?”

“Can they get this out of me?”

“You’re pregnant,” he said, she should know this.

“I never asked to be,” she said, “I don’t want it. I don’t want it to live,” and Altair nearly stood up and slapped her. “They did horrible things to me, kept me in little rooms all alone unless they wanted to try and impregnate me. I nearly died. I wish I had. My near death experiance activated my beacon for body retrieval but they brought me back. I was a valuable asset, I had a Mormon child inside me they wanted. I don’t want this parasite,” she said it all very calmly, or it sounded calm to Altair, he was still too out of practice to hear the subtle rage in Korean.

“You can talk to the bureau leader about it,” Altair said passionlessly. “If he says yes you might be able to get it transferred to an AWC. If you or it aren’t healthy enough to suffer a surgery you may have to carry it to term.”

“Couldn’t I just abort it?” she asked.

“If you’re healthy enough,” he looked at her body, thin from being kept in that place for so long her stomach looking more like a malformed growth. He doubted she would get a surgery or an abortion, it was at her risk as much as the child’s. They wouldn’t risk her life just to satisfy her desire to not bear the child. “Whatever happens,” his words felt like lead coming from his mouth, “you’ll never have to see them if you don’t want. Someone in our fortress would gladly become their surrogate.” As a father of three the idea that someone would just want to throw their child away made him feel ill. But he couldn’t put himself into Maelin’s position either. He would never have to carry around a bastard child of a man who’d raped him. He tried not to judge her, but in a world conditioned to make you envy women who could bear their own children without the use of a Child Bank it was difficult.

“Good,” she said and they both looked when someone else approached the bed. It was a member of small group of tech in the bureau with their slick, black, plug suit. At least they weren’t wearing their creepy eye caps.

“Hello, I’m Ferrin,” said the tech in Korean, “You’re Maelin Do?”

“Yes,” Maelin nodded.

“We’ve contacted the fortress in Singapore and told them what happened. They’re happy to know you’re alive, they thought they lost Kappa.”

“Kappa does not die,” she said.

“They said we have permission to keep you until you come to term. After, if you wish you may return to Singapore,” Maelin nodded to Ferrin.

“Sir,” Munahid drew Altair’s attention, he tore his eyes and attention away from Maelin and Ferrin, “the doctors gave you an all clear.”

“Oh thank the God,” he said and got up, feeling very tired. Someone had picked up the pieces of Jari’s Alpha suit and taken it away. “Show me where I can sleep in this place, I haven’t been here long enough to do so,” he felt exhausted.

“Right this way,” Munahid beckoned and Altair lumbered after him. Haytham was gone as well, no doubt to be let to sleep in a more comfortable bed than the one in the med ward. As they walked some people ran past them but Altair asked no questions, he just wanted to sleep.

Munahid showed him to a room where most of Alpha was bunking, the lump that was Haytham was already there, “Good!” Altair said and went inside, “make sure Jari gets some sleep too,” he added to Munahid.

“Do I have permission to drag him away from the med ward if required?”

“Yes, you do,” Altair nodded as he sat down on the bed. “Wake me in a few hours or if anything important happens.”

“The bureau leader still wants to write you up,” Munahid said, glancing over at Haytham who was sleeping quietly.

“He can write me up after I wake up. We still rescued a member of the Order,” he pulled off the Mormon’s pants and got under the blanket. “Few hours,” he reminded Munahid.

“Yes, sir,” Munahid nodded, “I’ll make sure the others get some sleep after debriefing. Rest easy, sir.”

“Going to dream of lollipops,” Altair chuckled and Munahid grinned before leaving him. Altair heard the door close and that was it before he was out.

—

“Altair, wake up,” Altair’s eyes opened and he was awake just like that. He sat up and blinked. Munahid was there again. “Get dressed.”

“I haven’t even taken a shower,” Altair groaned at him.

“Fine, take a quick one,” and now Altair could hear the buzzing of an alarm.

“What’s going on?” Altair asked as he got out of bed, other members of Alpha were also waking from their sleep around him.

“You won’t like it sir,” Munahid said.

“I never do,” Altair sighed and pulled on his casual uniform, sitting down to lace and tie up the boots.

“Alpha-twelve is gone,” and Altair froze.

“Excuse me?” he asked, stopping tying his boots and staring at Munahid.

“Desmond is gone,” he said again.

“Oh for the love of,” he groaned and quickly finished tying his boots. “Lemmie guess, we’re going after him?”

“The other field agents in the fortress have already been dispatched. Everyone in Marcusville is being sent to look for him and apparently some people are being flown in from New Denver.”

“Seriously?” Altair asked. Munahid nodded, “Damn, what the hell is the Audi thinking?”

“No idea,” Munahid said.

“Everyone up?” Altar barked once he was fully dressed, his black shirt tucked into his pants.

“Sir!” and everyone was standing by their bed like they were waiting for inspection. God damn he’d hated inspection as a novice.

“Only Diyari is unaccounted for,” Munahid said, standing beside Altair.

“He out of surgery?”

“Yes, sir,” Munahid nodded. “They’re keeping him in a chemical coma until they’ve replicated enough of his own blood for a proper infusion.”

“Jari,” and Altair beckoned to the man, he came over, the others didn’t move. “You know what we’re doing?”

“No sir,” he shook his head, Jari looked like he was dead on his feet and still had dark bags under his eyes, he probably hadn’t slept well if at all, despite Munahid dragging him away from the med ward.

“Simple location mission,” he patted Jari’s shoulder, “So you just stay here and keep an eye on Diyari for me will ya?” Jari nodded mutely, “And try and get some sleep son, you look like death warmed up.”

“I’ll try, sir,” he nodded.

“Good boy,” he grinned and released Jari from his position before addressing the others, “Alpha,” he said, “one of our own is missing. Alpha-twelve has gone missing. These damn desk jockeys apparently can’t keep an eye on our kid. Marcusville and Denver are being scrambled to look for him. I want you all in civilian clothes in half an hour, if you need to shower, shower. We’re going out into society.”

“Yes, sir,” came the sound and they went about doing what they had to do.

“Nine, here,” Altair flicked his hand and Haytham came up to him and Munahid. “You sleep?” he asked, putting his hand on the side of the kid’s neck and Altair was reminded how damn young some of his men were. Haytham had only turned twenty this year.

“I did sir,” he nodded, he had a new scar on his forehead but didn’t look exhausted like Jari had.

“You up for help on the hunt?”

“If you’re going I’m going, sir,” he said, “I know Diyari would feel the same if he could.”

Altair smirked, “That he would. Alright, take a shower, get dressed,” he let Haytham go and he went. “Same for me,” he told Munahid. “As they get ready send them down to the ground floor. I’ll get in touch with support once I dress,” and Munahid nodded. Altair left him and went to find himself some hot water.

 —

Malik was in the elevator with his son, they were heading up to level eighty-one, which was the ground floor. Malik hadn’t seen the sky in a long time it seemed like and the synth rooms couldn’t compare to the real sky. Tazim, at eleven, had never seen the outside world before, not in person anyway, so Malik decided it was time. Most people in the fortress forgot what society was like, forgot what the world was like, because all they did was live in the hive. It wasn’t that Malik missed society, he loved the fortress, loved the people in it, loved what he did, but sometimes synthetic sky and synthetic wind just didn’t cut it. Sometimes he wanted the real thing, so after work he’d stopped at level twenty-two and picked Tazim up.

“How were classes?” Malik asked as they passed level thirty.

“Third level is boring,” Tazim told him giving him a look, “Can’t I just go to forth already?” he puffed his cheeks out a bit.

“No,” Malik said with a chuckle, “Third level is just as important as the fourth and fifth and the second.”

“But fourth level you get to learn how to fight,” Tazim whined and the elevator stopped at level forty-six. Malik rose his brows at that, this was one of the all fortress elevators, you needed a high enough rank, Third Class at least, to get it to stop so you could board it. He was surprised when an Alpha suit walked onto the elevator. The whole of Alpha was currently in Colorado, what the hell was someone doing in an Alpha suit?

The Alpha suit stopped and seemed awkward to have clearly interrupted, “Uh…” came the female voice through the external speakers.

“Can I help you Alpha?” Malik asked, “Why aren’t you in Colorado?”

“Uh…” then she cleared her throat, “I’m testing,” she said it awkwardly.

“Ah,” and he still didn’t move. He had every right to use this elevator and she was the one making this awkward, not him. “You coming or not Alpha?” he asked.

“Sorry,” and she stepped onto the elevator, she seemed unaccustomed to the Alpha suit and its electrical enhancements. Malik had worn an Alpha suit once, when he’d tested for Alpha after coming back from his pilgrimage, by then Altair had already made Alpha, but he could still remember what one felt like to wear. He’d also tested for Delta and the difference between an Alpha and Delta suit was nearly jarring. It wasn’t that the Delta suits weren’t high tech, they were just so in different ways. Delta did recon so their suits were keyed to do different things, unlike Alpha who were their spec ops. It was like the difference of apple pie and cherry pie, both tasty, both pie, but different.

A silence fell over the elevator and Tazim moved closer to Malik, Malik didn’t blame him. Alpha suits were intimidating with their blank glass helmets. At about level sixty the Alpha cleared her throat again, “Ah, I’m sorry for making that awkward,” and she cleared his black vizor and looked at Malik.

“Ziio?” he asked, surprised and then looked her over again. In the Alpha suit she didn’t read as the tiny woman at all. Though he had noticed that, women in Alpha were either tiny, or huge, very few in between, no average heighted women. The Alpha suit had to give her at least three inches.

“Hi,” she said with one of her sly, though easy, smiles.

“You’re trying out for Alpha?” and all he thought was damn. Ziio was one of their new supports, she’d gotten back from her pilgrimage eight months ago and had been training in support. She was good at it, he and Shaun sometimes ran simulations with her to get her used to working with a unit and under high stress situations as they ran old missions. Some that had been successes and some that had failed. She wasn’t the best at it and was sometimes too zealous for her own good. Honestly he was surprised she’d even bothered when she so clearly wanted to be on the field. He was glad to see she was trying out for Alpha.

“Yeah,” she shrugged and the big shoulders of the Alpha suit exaggerated it.

“Why?”

“I figured I’d give it a go,” she said, “I mean, who doesn’t want to be on the best unit in the fortress?”

“But you’re training for support,” Malik said, just being redundant. Everyone tried out for Alpha, or nearly everyone. Everyone wanted a shot at the top slot, if they had what it took to wear an Alpha suit. Most didn’t.

“It was my auxiliary. If I don’t work out with A-1 I’ll come back,” because of course a lot of people got into Alpha, but if Alpha-one (Altair Malik reminded himself irritably) didn’t like you you were out. It was the same with all the units Alpha through Delta, and the units usually all traded out when a new One came into power as they got rid of the people they didn’t work well with or those people chose to step down once their original CO stepped down.

“A-1 is a piece of shit,” Malik heard himself say.

Ziio blinked, “Really? I’ve heard he’s an okay guy.”

“I’ve worked with him on several missions,” Malik stressed, “He’s a narcissistic dick who thinks too highly of himself.”

Ziio frowned at him, “I’m going to take your words with some salt,” she decided.

“What are in an Alpha suit for?” he asked, go around the talk of Altair. She’d learn. Soon enough, she’d learn.

“Final test before they hand me over to Alpha before integration,” she said. “I’m supposed to make it to location in St. Adams without being detected.”

Malik made a face, “Well I can tell you right now. You’re doing a shit job as an Alpha. Alphas don’t tell their missions to anyone but each other and their support on duty,” and Ziio looked instantly worried as the elevator glided to a halt and dinged, opening onto level seventy-one. Malik grinned, “Don’t worry, we won’t tell, right Tazim?” he asked and ruffled his son’s hair affectionately.

“Yeah!” Tazim nodded and now that he saw the person behind the black glass was actually a pretty lady he was much less intimidated by her.

“What are you doing up this high?” Ziio asked as she followed Malik and Tazim out of the elevator and to another elevator that specifically serviced levels seventy-one to seventy-six through the thick bulk head that protected the fortress from above as a protective concrete and metal shell that wrapped around the top of the fortress. Above the bulkhead, level seventy-seven to eighty were the hangers for their helis and ground vehicle and all the facilities required to maintain them.

“Taking Tazim to see the sky,” Malik said and took his son’s hand, squeezing it. “First time.”

“Wow,” Ziio said, “You excited?” she asked Tazim who nodded enthusiastically.

This elevator ride was shorter and they walked out together. “I’ll see you around,” Ziio said and headed for yet another set of elevator banks that would take her further up still, probably to the admin halls or the Mentor’s level. But for Tazim and Malik this would be their stop.

“Bye,” he said and Tazim waved as the elevator dinged and Ziio got onto it, her helmet going black once more.

“Dad, who was that?” Tazim asked as Malik led Tazim through the main foyer. While the underground of the fortress was just that; a fortress, the rather short building above ground looked like a bank. That was their cover and while normal people could get down to the first basement level by accident they were always quickly escorted back up. And yes the fortress did function as a real bank. They had to provide for and fund their small army somehow and banking and investment was their main form of income along with private hits. Most of the top half of the fortress was entirely public domain and open to society, they also had a small park on premises behind a front gate. Novices were forbidden to go beyond the gate without express permission and were only allowed above ground with a parent or instructor to supervise.

“Someone I work with,” Malik said, there were people moving about in the main foyer though none gave Malik a second look. It was close to closing time for society but the fortress ran on Pacific time, because most of the population in the NCC was located in California, it made more sense. So what was dinner time for society was the middle of the day for the fortress. It was always confusing when you went into society in the east coast and realized your internal clock was three hours behind.

“She was pretty,” he said.

“She was,” Malik agreed as they left the foyer and entered the walled in area outside.

“Woooow,” Tazim said, looking up and Malik had to drag him out of the doorway and to the park area where he could sit. Tazim sat on the grass in amazement and kept looking up at the sky. Tazim had felt fake grass and see a fake sky, but there was something different about seeing it for real. Especially here as the fortress sat at the top of one of the hills in the area and the wall, which looked decorative but was still thick enough to withstand a tank bombardment, was low enough that from the park you could see the rest of the neighborhood over it.

People rushed out of the building, heading for their cars or the, free, public transit stop two blocks down the street. None of them noticed the setting sun, but Malik was enjoying it and clearly so was Tazim. “Dad,” he turned and looked at Malik, “where are they going?”

“Home for the night,” he said.

“But it’s only three o’clock!” Tazim frowned at him.

Malik chuckled, “Society runs on different time,” Malik said.

“That’s stupid. They should run on our time,” and Tazim looked up once more at the sky. “It’s really pretty out here. It smells so good,” and he inhaled.

“It does,” Malik agreed and reached out to run his hand through his son’s hair. “You’ll get to experience it all in a few years.”

“Yeah?” Tazim looked up at him with a smile, “My pilgrimage?” he asked excitedly.

“Yeah,” Malik nodded with a smile but his chest felt tight. He knew he wasn’t the only parent who worried about their kid when they went out into society, when they left home. What if they never came home? What if they came back hurt or addicted to some society drug? Society was full of vices, Malik had experienced a lot of them and knew that society could be a scary place.

“I can’t wait till I get to go on my pilgrimage,” Tazim said. “I wanna go to an ocean, swim in an ocean and see whales.”

“Good luck with that,” Malik said, since most whales were either gone or almost gone. Before the Collapse the world had nearly fished the entire ocean dry, now most of the fish left were inedible and large portions of sea mammals were gone, since so was the fish they ate, along with changes in temperature. Five hundred years wasn’t enough time for sea life to evolve into new things, though new species were being discovered every year it seemed.

“I wanna see a humpback,” Tazim said, “Or a blue- oh oh, an orca,” he looked at Malik expectantly. “They still have those, right?”

“Yeah, they do,” though there hadn’t been wild orcas in decades. Seal colonies were too small to sustain them or moved south for better feeding. You had to visit aquariums to see orcas.

“I wanna see everything,” Tazim said as the sun started to set.

“You will,” Malik said, still running his fingers through Tazim’s hair, “You will,” and his voice sounded sad to his own ears.

—

Ziio was back down in the hanger. She’d been given her objective and it was now projected in small onto the inside of her helmet, an intersection in St. Adams she had to reach in three hours without being detected. She passed this she made it onto Alpha and when Alpha came back from Colorado she’d be given a shot working with Alpha-one.

Frankly Ziio was kind of excited to work with Alpha-one. He was Alpha-one, the best on the continent and since the fall of two fortresses and the Asian and Australian fortress were both silent it could be said world. There was no fortress in South America or Africa, because most of the population had killed each other during the wars of the Collapse. Both continents didn’t have a big enough population even five centuries later to warrant Templar attention and thus didn’t warrant Assassin attention.

She was waiting for a mechanic to bring her vehicle when she suddenly got a ping which confused her. Her mission was supposed to be silent, no help from support or anyone, she had to get to her marker on her own. “Hello?” she asked, confused.

“Alpha-beta-one?” an older, male, voice asked. Alpha-beta was only used on members of Alpha before they officially joined Alpha.

“Yes?” still confused.

“Your current bullshit mission has been canceled,” and she started in surprise. What? Who was this.

“But I just got told my the Mentor-

“The Audi has no jurisdiction on my men during a mission.”

Ziio’s mouth went dry, “You’re Alpha-one,” she said.

“That I am. Now I’ve been told by support you’re a tracker by trade and training.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, now totally engrossed in talking with him and ignoring the mechanic who was trying to get her attention.

“Good. I need you to come to Marcusville and find something for me.”

“What am I looking for, sir?”

“You’ll get a full briefing when you arrive Alpha-beta-one,” Alpha-one said. “I’ve set up for a heli to carry you from the fortress to Marcusville. Prepare yourself for working in society naked,” and it took her a moment to remember that ‘naked’ was the term units used for going into the field without a suit. “Your ETA is four hours,” then her comm clicked again.

“Alpha-beta-one this is Twice,” a new, female, voice said, “I’ll be flying you to Marcusville. Me and Once are waiting for in the heli, call sign; Again.”

“Okay,” it was all going nearly too fast for Ziio to get. “This is all pretty sudden,” she said.

Over the comm Alpha-one laughed, “Welcome to Alpha, girl. See you in four hours,” and then the comm went dead. She had no way to reconnect with his freq or even where it had come from. All she could do was head for Again.


	9. The Disappearance of the Boy

Altair and Munahid were standing on top of the bureau when the heli landed. The sun had set a little while ago and Munahid squinted as the rotor tipped back throwing up wind before it landed. The back opened up and Alpha-Beta-one stepped out from the back of the heli. Altair beckoned to them and she walked over to them, she looked awkward in the suit, clearly she wasn’t used to it. The heli took off almost immediately and headed towards the Texan border.

"Alpha-Beta-one," Altair said when she got near.

"Sir," and she saluted him.

"I’m Alpha-one, this is my second, Alpha-six, follow us while we bring you up to speed on the situation," and Altair turned. Munahid walked beside him but AB-one was a step or two behind. “The Audi told me you’re one of the best new trackers we have and should be on Delta or Foxtrot and not Alpha," Altair was saying.

"I want to be on the best unit, sir," AB-one said.

"Good, because I only take the best," Altair glanced over his shoulder at her. “I know you had another mission in St. Adams before I brought you here. That mission is now void, this is your baptism girl," and Munahid smiled privately to himself. “You work well here, you’re on Alpha. You don’t, I don’t give a fuck what happens to you," and they were getting into an elevator to go down. AB-one said nothing. “We’re looking for this boy," Munahid handed Altair the tablet he was holding and Altair brought up the picture of Desmond, “He’s eleven years old and important to the Audi. Every free agent in Marcusville and New Denver are being put on this mission."

"Why’s he so important, sir?" AB-one asked.

"You’re in Alpha, you don’t ask. You do," Altair said and the elevator dinged, they got off and to a room where parts of Alpha were, all of them busy, some looking over tablets and maps, a few others were at the big touch table coordinating with support. “Four," Altair called, “Get AB-one some clothes," and then he turned back to AB-one, “Strip," he ordered.

Munahid couldn’t help but chuckle when AB-one was taken aback and hesitated, “Excuse me, sir?" she asked.

"You heard me," Altair said as Mira started rustling through clothes that had been provided to her. Mira was about the same size as AB-one, though the Alpha suit made her look larger everyone knew how big she was outside the suit.

"Here?"

"AB-one," Altair said, “I am the One of Alpha. When I give an order, you do it, without hesitation. Is that understood?"

There was hesitation, “Yes, sir," she said.

"Good. Now strip," and Munahid knew Altair wasn’t doing this to humiliate her. It was to make a point sure but they also needed to do this as quickly as possible. Desmond had been gone five hours and every moment he was missing made it that much harder to find him. Worrying about some greenie’s personal issues with getting naked in front of the rest of Alpha wasn’t something they could do. There was no shame amid Alpha.

Mira came up to Munahid as AB-one popped the seal on her borrowed helm and took it off. Altair was talking again as Mira handed Munahid some clothes before going back to what she was doing, “The last sighting of the target, code A-twelve, was five hours ago on a security camera outside the bureau," the suit peeled off AB-one and she stepped out of it. “All of it," Altair said, barely paying attention as he brought a file up on the tablet, meaning the undersuit. AB-one looked at Munahid and he just rose his brows at her. Alpha didn’t question One: when he ordered you to jump you didn’t bother asking how high since Altair always as high as you could go and then some. AB-one started to unzip her black undersuit too, “Tell me what you need to start a hunt," Altair was still looking at the tablet and when Munahid looked over at it he saw Altair was going through AB-one’s file.

"The last location, an article of clothing they wore and about five minutes," she said now standing in front of Altair and Munahid in her compression bra and mid thigh running tights. Munahid handed her civilian clothes and she seemed glad to put them on. She was going to have to get used to being vulnerable around her unit, the amount of times Alpha would change amid each other was staggering.

"Can do," and Altair looked up and past her to Ehan and Haytham standing and looking over a tablet, “Nine," he called and Haytham looked up. “Go get one of A-twelve’s clothes." Haytham nodded and left. AB-one was dressed now and she tucked her shirt into her pants, Munahid handed her an ear piece and she looked overwhelmed by what was going on. Munahid just smiled reassuringly at her. She was going to have a pretty easy trial though. Munahid had had his baptism during a skirmish between the US and Texas that had left two hundred people dead and a few thousand injured.

Altair finally put his tablet down, “Any questions?" he asked.

"Do I have a time limit?" she asked.

"No. But you should focus on finding him as quickly as possible. This is an amber mission, it is high priority," she nodded. “Six, send nine to us when he gets back, I’m taking AB-one to the last local."

"Will do," Munahid said.

"Follow me," Altair motioned and walked off, AB-one followed him.

—

Ziio was still reeling from being told to get naked in front of a bunch of strangers by Alpha-one. But she followed after him dutifully, trying to get her bearings. She was remarkably good at thinking on her feet and adapting to situations but Alpha-one wasn’t giving her time to think, to focus. Though she supposed that was the point. Alpha demanded absolute obedience, you only thought when Alpha-one and Alpha-six told you to think. As she walked behind him she could reorient herself.

Alpha-one was and wasn’t what she was expecting. He was older than her and had a face without humor or kindness, which she’d expected. She hadn’t expected him to be attractive though. She also hadn’t expected most of Alpha to be so young. She hadn’t recognized anyone but they all felt familiar to her in some way, clearly she’d seen them when they were children though were in levels above or below her. But most of them were young like her and she was only twenty-three. She didn’t know any of their names, she didn’t even know Apha-one’s name, and he wasn’t sharing, she was also too intimidated to ask.

She focused back on what she had to do now. She was searching for a lost boy for… the Audi? She had to assume he meant the Mentor. She knew next to nothing about the mission though other than it was a search and retrieve mission. Alpha-one led her in and out of an elevator that took to the ground floor and down the block. “This is the last known location of A-twelve," Alpha-one said, “then he turned this way," he pointed around the corner, “and we lost sight of him. Find him," and it wasn’t a request; it was an order. Ziio knew this was serious. She failed here this was her one shot. What had he called it? Her baptism? Who the hell used archaic words like that anymore? It seemed Alpha did.

Ziio looked at Alpha-one who was looking back, face blank and serious, then she looked away and closed her eyes. She kicked her EVs into gear. Ziio tracked by senses and during her pilgrimage to trace her steps back to that of her ancestral Native Americans she’d learned to hone her EVs to a knife’s sharpness. Her ancestors were long since dead except for a few pockets along the east coast and they still worked in the old ways and hated society about as much as the Assassins and only used them for the Child Banks so they wouldn’t die out.

The fifth EV, smell, was often overlooked by most people because it could be so easy to be overwhelmed by it, especially in society. In the fortress where things were kept clean and outside contaminate or even air exchange between areas was rare, there was a uniform smell in the fortress, unlike in society. Society was full of smell, layered and complex and unorganized. If you didn’t train yourself, using the fifth could overwhelm you, especially when you used it like Ziio did and she turned up her ears and dialed her eyes to use classic, and zoom at the same time. Using two eye EVs, or any two EVs, at once was hard, most people couldn’t do it, three was considered impossible. Ziio could use four EVs at the same time if she needed to.

Ziio breathed in slowly and looked around, it was late for society and the street was empty of cars and people and the streetlights were placed far apart in this part of the city casting long stretches of the street into deep shadow. Her ears could hear Alpha-one’s heart beat a few feet away and if she dialed them up more she’d be able to hear his nerves firing and the sound of his blood rushing through his body. You had to be careful when using the EVs that relied on outside stimuli, to dial them just right so you weren’t overloaded, weren’t over stimulated. She turned as someone came up behind them, it was Alpha-nine.

"Sir, I found a shirt," Alpha-nine said and handed it to Ziio on Alpha-one’s say. She took it and lifted it to her face. Sometimes trackers got a bad rep. She’d started training in it before her pilgrimage, to help her find her people, and everyone called her bloodhound, or dog. She beat up the people who called her dog.

"Can I see his picture again?" Ziio asked Alpha-one and he showed her the boy’s picture on the tablet. She burned it into her memory. She didn’t have perfect recall like a lot of support or tech, but all Assassins had a good memory and she now related the smell from the shirt to the face and then she looked away. She dialed her ears back and calmed her heart she didn’t realize was racing before turning up classic. She inhaled deeply a few times and could start to see the scent trails in her vision, she smelled the shirt and inhaled away from it once more and looked down the street. After a moment she thought she saw something and zoomed in. And she was right.

"Got a hit," she said and without even looking to see if they’d follow she started to walk off.

"Alpha, support, good news; we got a lead," she head Alpha-one say as he followed after her down the street.

—

Altair followed behind AB-one as she started down the street. He knew her name, it had been in her file, but he didn’t remember it, he wouldn’t bother to learn it unless she made Alpha. That was how he’d been with all his current men and how Alpha-one before him had been. Unless he knew you outside of Alpha and his friend he didn’t bother to learn your name. Especially not of some Alpha-Beta. He got Alpha-Betas trying out for Alpha every three weeks. Sometimes he had three at one time. He couldn’t bother to learn the names of people he didn’t work with or didn’t care about. Right now that was AB-one. He didn’t care about her. Right now she was a tool, not a person. She could find Desmond.

He didn’t let it show, but he was worried about Desmond. He was eleven years old and had never been in society before. As it was society was scary enough if you were eighteen and being put in it for the first time.

Altair equally hated and was afraid of society. It had destroyed him as a younger man and it and Templars had made him go back to the fortress early, because of what they’d done. How they’d ruined him. It was why he had had a child so early, he’d been nineteen when he’d been joined with Darim’s mother. It had been the talk of the fortress and sometimes it still came up. He was glad they’d pushed him into a season that year, because he’d been ready to kamakazi his missions in Alpha until death took him. Darim’s birth had made him want to live again.

He shook his head a bit. He couldn’t think about that. They were looking for Desmond now. Altair was worried for him. Worried that he was scared and alone and as much as Altair pretended to not care; he did. He’d only known the kid a short time but at the same time, they were a child. A child who needed protecting. Protecting like Maelin didn’t want to protect her own child. The thought of Desmond, or any child, alone, especially in a place like Marcusville, one of the most dangerous cities in the NCC, had Altair’s worry rocket up. He just wanted Desmond to be okay and for AB-one to find him.

AB-one didn’t talk as she did what she was trained to do as Altair and Haytham followed her in her search. The people about this late at night crossed the street as they got near because even unarmored it was clear they meant business, clear they were dangerous.

AB-one stopped at an intersection and looked confused and turned slowly in a circle. “Well?" Altair asked her.

"I lost it," she said, looking at him with golden EV eyes. “What else can you tell me about him?"

"Does it matter?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, “I build a different track map depending on what I know about my target. Important information only."

"He has EVs," Altair said, “he’s nearly five feet tall."

"More," AB-one said.

Altair’s mouth went thin, “We don’t know much about him," Altair confessed.

"Why?"

"We found him. He’s a runaway from somewhere else. The Audi decided he was important."

"Where did he run away from?"

"We don’t know. He sought us… me out specifically," Altair was slightly uncomfortable with admitting that, but it was true. Desmond clearly had pre knowledge about Altair and sought him out out of all the others in Alpha or the bureau.

"Do you know why?"

"No," he shook his head.

AB-one stepped up to him and sniffed him and he tried hard not to find it weird. Trackers honestly freaked him out. They were a rarer subset of field agents who had a great control of their EVs to the point they could be used simultaneously. They were usually kinda shit in a fight since they couldn’t fight and use them so well at the same time. Altair could use two EVs at the time time and in a pinch might be able to use a third if he tried really hard but he was useless while doing so. He somehow got the feeling AB-one wasn’t just using two or three  EVs, but several of them, including several of the sight based ones. AB-one finished sniffing him and Altair did his best to not let it show on his face that he was uncomfortable with it. Honestly trackers and program admins were on the same level of creepy to Altair.

Then AB-one turned around and inhaled deeply several times. Creepy they might be Altair couldn’t even begin to imagine what sort of precision or mental coordination and training it took to do what they did. “Well?" Altair asked, “You get it back?"

She shook her head. “It’s weird," she said, “like he suddenly changed his scent. Or he just… got picked up."

"You mean like snatched off the street?" Altair asked.

She looked at him, “It’s possible," she said. “The trail is just… gone."

Altair cursed and touched his ear piece to open connections with support, “Support, this is Alpha-one, update on the amber alert. We might be looking for a kidnapper. Does anyone know A-twelve is here?"

"No."

"Did we have any communication problems while Alpha was in Utah?" and he saw AB-one pale at the mention of Utah. Damn, not even seven hours ago he’d been strapped naked to a fucking beam in Utah. He officially hated this mission, which had started as just a retrieve on Delta and had morphed into this monster of Utah and Desmond.

"Marcusville experienced a brown out and we went offline for a short time before our backup generators established power," support said, “But other than that nothing significant."

Altair blinked, “We’re headed back for the bureau. Call in all other agents," he said and started back for the bureau.

"Why?"

"I know where A-twelve is now. I’m going to need a room to hold all our agents and make sure everyone is suited up."

Support was just confused, “What? Why? What’s going on. Who has A-twelve?"

"Templars," and there was dead silence on the other side of the comm. “Support," he barked.

"All operatives are reconvening on the bureau. Tech is getting suits prepped, we’ll see you back here Alpha," support said.

—

Altair had his helmet under his arm as he stood in front of the big room filled with men and women, also without helmets. Off to the side, standing against the wall, were the eleven members of Alpha who could work this mission in their Alpha suits, the rest of the field operatives had lower tier suits. Most of them were from Echo or below but he did recognize the entire six man squad of Delta standing in a triangle formation in the ready position, all of them awake and ready to fight. Their suits were sleek and had very little armor on them and their helmets were shaped differently than the standard file helmets which looked like a pair of goggles and a blank slate under that. Delta helms were matte, except for a shiny visor strip across the eyes that could fade in and out like Alpha helms.

The bureau leader was off to Altair’s other side, his presence giving Altair ultimate authority over the situation. That was how it was usually though, the bureau leaders normally ran the tech and support side of the bureau and handed out missions. When big things like this happened power went to the highest ranked field operative. Without Alpha around that would fall to Delta-one, but Altair was here and no one outranked Altair except a First Class Assassin, and not even the bureau leader was that.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Altair said to the gathered Assassins, “As I’m sure you’re well aware a prime objective, designated by the Mentor, ran away earlier today. You were all called here to locate him and return him to the bureau. My tracker in Alpha located his last known whereabouts and it was determined that he was taken off the street," the wall behind him lit up with a view of Marcussville and zoomed in on where AB-one had lost Desmond’s scent. “Just now tech has reported a data leak in our system that they’ve traced to this location," the map moved to a new location. Then it put an image of the building over the satellite map. “This is Dawson and Milla law firm, a front for an Abstergo facility that lobbies heavily in the Colorado government for looser gun laws and stricter codes against competing pharmaceutical companies to attempt to create a monopoly here in Colorado.

"This is, however, not our only target," another picture replaced the law firm and the map moved to a new location. “Abok Industries is a member of the Abstergo corporation that buys government contracts to create weapons for the Marcusville military. As of now Abok has seven contracts, all of which aimed at crowd suppression and ‘safe’ firearms in an urban environment.

"These are the only two facilities in Marcusville that Abstergo has and the two locations that  A-twelve could have been taken to after his capture. We have an eye in the sky over both locations that is reporting back a great amount of movement around both locations, though as of yet we aren’t aware of the cause. Our mission is to hit both locations simultaneously. Extreme force is permitted but our prime objective is to reclaim A-twelve.

"I will be leading the unit that hits Abok Industries, Delta-one will be leading the unit against Dawson and Milla. Your assignments have already been relayed to your helmets. The Dawson unit will be leaving in ten minutes from the garage, the Abok will be leaving in fifteen. Good luck to you all," and Altair put on his helmet, sealing it and saluted the room. The room saluted him back and they put on their helmets.

Altair blinked up his roster. Support had assembled both units so Altair had no idea who was in his unit. He saw he had Delta two, five and six on his team as well as Alpha three, four, six, seven, nine and AB-one. Delta-one had the other five members of his squad. Jari had been brought on to help, more he’d insisted on it saying Diyari would be fine even if he wasn’t there every second. Altair thought it was more a doctor telling Jari he wouldn’t do Diyari any good hovering over him, worrying.

"A-one, this is D-one," Delta-one said over comms, on a private channel.

"Hello One," Altair said.

"I didn’t get a chance to tell you this earlier sir, but I wanted to thank you and your squad for picking me and the others up from that tunnel."

"Think nothing of it," Altair waved it off.

"Really sir, thank you. Good luck," they added.

"Good luck to you too. If you find A-twelve be careful with him, any hot shots in your unit rough him up they’ll be answering to me."

There was a beat of silence, “Understood," clearly D-one hadn’t’ been expecting Altair to be so harsh about the entire thing. But he was. Altair was a dad of three; he worried, it was what dads did.

"Abok unit," Altair announced over their open comm after disconnecting with Delta-one. “Whatever squad you were a part of, for this mission you’re being issued a new one," and he beckoned to Munahid and patted his helmet. “For tonight you are all Alpha-Charlie, your new number is being relayed now," and he knew Munahid was sending out all the information. The numbers on Altair’s roster had already changed as support had made those changes.

Altair sent all his men down to the garage along with D1’s unit and D1’s unit got ready to go, getting into cars with dark windows while AC stood to the side waiting. D1’s unit rolled out in ten minutes and AC was ready to go in moments as Altair had already coordinated drivers. Altair got into a passenger seat next to AC13 who was driving. The garage doors opened when it was time for them to go and the five suvs that held AC rolled out and into the Marcusville night, headed for Abok Industries, and hopefully Desmond as well.

—

Altair had put Jari with the other members of Delta they had in the AC unit. It made sense. Jari would have made Delta easily if Altair hadn’t decided he’d liked him and wanted him on Alpha. So now Jari was with the three other members of Delta as they headed for the front of Abok Industries, Mira in the middle of their group. They were escorts basically, protection for a much weaker member who had a very specific skill. The five of them had scaled the wall around Abok and were taking Mira to where she could hook into their systems and fuck with it.

Jari had his leaf bladed sword in hand as he walked next to Mira. None of them spoke but AC-eight held up his hand, making a fist, sign for them to stop. AC-eight was in charge here, even though Jari or Mira outranked him, but you let the guy who’d dedicated his life to recon and sneaking lead the mission where you did a lot of sneaking. As a unit they crouched, Mira and Jari’s Alpha suits rippled to take on the particular shade of darkness they were in and they waited in silence. Jari didn’t know what AC-eight was seeing but he also didn’t ask.

A group of private soldiers walked past where they were, unseeing, talking. “You know what all this is about?" “Haven’t a clue." Jari tuned out the rest, it wasn’t important, he was looking at AC-eight. Did they attack? AC-eight didn’t move an inch and in fact looked like he’d become a piece of stone. Then the guards passed, moved away from them and AC-eight stood, the others stood and followed him.

They arrived at the outer wall of the big building Abok Industries was located in. “AC-four," AC-eight broke radio silence, “do it."

Jari didn’t need to have it explained to him. Alpha and Delta were very similar in function in general with one key difference, Delta was sent in to look; Alpha was sent in to do. Jari looked up at the big building, made almost entirely of glass. He blinked through a range of settings on his Alpha suit and then two short, rather dull, blades shot out of his arm, one at his elbow, the other under his wrist. “Give me a boost," he said since the wall they were against was below where the glass started.

AC-eight and nine braced themselves against the wall. AC-eight held out his hands and Jari stepped onto it. AC-nine’s hands came to grab Jari’s other foot and they lifted him into the air, this hands changing positions on him to grab his ankles and keep him stable. Jari looked at his arm and reached up, the blade on the underside of his wrist caught the glass and he pressed the other blade on his elbow down as well. He blinked at his Alpha suit and a glass cutting blade showed itself out of the tip of his finger. He cut a piece out of the glass the width of his forearm and then once it was all cut he tugged his arm back. The little blades on his suit acted as hooks and the glass popped off effortlessly. He took the glass and gently handed it down to someone to laid it down on the grass.

"You almost done AC-four, you ain’t light?" AC-nine asked, his voice straining.

"I’m going in," Jari said and grabbed the edge and pulled himself through the hole he’d made. Once up there he pulled out his sword and looked around. The hallway he’d crawled into was lit but empty, just like he’d seen. He opened his ears for camera motors, but heard none. They were safe while he finished this. He put his sword on the ground while he kneeled on the floor.

His first cut had been high. Now he started from the bottom of the hole and went to the floor with the glass cutter. He grabbed the top of the now loose glass so it didn’t fall when he finished. “Hands up, glass coming down," he said and with some effort slid the glass into the waiting hands of AC. Jari stood once he was done, “We’re clear, come up," he said, grabbing up his sword. They boosted Mira up first and then one after the other they boosted each other up until AC-eight helped AC-nine up, since he was the last to go.

"According to our map their security is on the ninth floor," AC-eight said over comms. “You ready AC-three?" he asked Mira.

"Always ready, sir," Mira said.

"Good, lets go. Keep low," and they headed for the stairs down the hall. They’d picked this part of the building because it was the furthest from the entrance without being on the back. Most places had the most security at the front and the back, few thought to outfit the sides with as much security as that. Flanks were almost always vulnerable.

They walked up the nine flights, stopping at each door for AC-ten to put some kind of paste on the hinges that basically made them lock up and hard to open. At the ninth floor they opened the door slowly and AC-eight slipped through. “We’re clear," he said a moment later and they opened the door and left it. AC-ten applied the paste here too before they headed out. There was no one on this floor as they headed for security in the middle of the floor. The door for it was marked and AC-eight put his ear against the door, Jari could only imagine what he was doing. “Five guards in there," AC-eight said, and now Jari knew; echolocation, worked even through doors or walls if you were good enough. “AC-three, stay back," Mira stood back and out of the way. “The rest of you get ready, I don’t know if they have an alarm, we need to be quick." He and AC nine and ten nodded.

Jari squeezed handle of his sword as AC-eight opened the door quickly. Only one guard looked when the door opened, clearly they weren’t expecting resistance. They blazed red in classic as Jari shoved his leaf bladed sword through his throat. The man didn’t have time to scream or cough, his just died when Jari severed his spinal column. He moved onto the next one quickly while the others got the other three. He went right for the throat again, cutting both jugulars. This time the man died drowning on his own blood, Jari didn’t even watch, he was moving already.

Alpha or Delta it didn’t matter, all upper level field units were trained to secure a room the same way. They spread out and checked every crack and crevice of the security room. They found another security guard in the bathroom, and killed him right there on the toilet. “Clear," he heard AC eight say over comms.

"Clear," Jari agreed.

"Clear," nine and ten said.

"Three come in here," eight said. Mira stepped into the room, her black visor going clear. She gave no impression that the gore or blood affected her in any way and went over to the main terminal, pushing a dead guard off his chair and sat in it. There was a sound of squishing blood as she did so. AC nine closed the door ass Mira popped out the cable from the back of her neck and then another from the bottom of her wrist and fit them into two jacks under the counsel. She sank into the chair, going limp and relaxed. Hacking doors was one thing but this was deep circrity work and she acted like most program admins did when they sank into the circuitry and went nearly completely limp.

"We in?" eight asked. Mira didn’t answer. “Three-

"Give her a second," Jari said, “Society networks aren’t like ours. They aren’t designed for this sort of stuff. It’ll take her a minute." He could feel eight’s scowl, though couldn’t see it.

A few minutes later they heard Mira sigh, “I’m in," she said mechanically, her voice sort of dreamy. For a second all the screens changed and displayed the Assassin logo. “No, not that," she was speaking to herself, the screens glitched away from that back to their proper camera. A moment later all the power in the building went off except for to this room and the cameras. Backup power kicked on a few seconds later but then that died as well. Abok Industries was dark.

"Alpha-Charlie-one, this is Alpha-Charlie-eight, you copy?" eight asked over platoon wide comms.

"I copy AC-eight," Altair said.

"We’ve secured the building, sir."

"Good," Altair said. “AC-three, be a dear and open the front door for us."

"Yes, sir," Mira said in her monotone voice. Jari looked at the screens and saw the front of Abok Industries through the camera feed. The lights came on there and he could see people talking, yelling, wondering what the hell was going on. Then the metal gate slowly opened. Once it was open the lights went off again. Jari continued to watch, since the camera was still watching, still listening, though the screen was basically black. Barely a minute passed when the yelling took on a different tone, it was fear. Then there was silence.

"We’re in," Altar’s voice came over the comms, “keep AC-three safe, we’ll call when you need to get the hell out." Jari looked down at the man in the seat next to Mira, one he’d killed. He pushed the man out of the way, sat down, and put his feet up on the terminal. Now all they had to do was wait.

—

Haytham stood next to Altair and he was shaking, trembling really, and was glad his Alpha suit didn’t show that he was literally shaking in his boots. Last time he’d been on the field it had gotten him tortured. He’d be an idiot to not think that when he go back to the fortress he wouldn’t need some psyche sessions. Altair had already discussed it with him, the three of them were getting psyche sessions and there was no complaining allowed about it. He wasn’t going to let that affect him though. Altair could handle it and Altair was a fucking old man. Haytham could handle it.

Next to him was the new girl, still didn’t know her name, probably wouldn’t unless she made Alpha. The crazy tracker girl. AC-seven had a tick about her while they waited for Mira to connect with the society’s computer. An Alpha suit did one of two things, it either made it impossible to see what your body was doing under it, or amplified it tenfold. Haytham had been wearing his suit long enough to know how to keep his trembling from showing, AC-seven however did not. She was nervous and it was obvious.

Haytham opened a private comm line to AC-seven. “Hey," he said and frowned when he startled her.

"Uh… who is this?" she asked since in suits it was impossible to tell who was talking unless you knew them by voice, like most squads did.

"AC-five, I’m standing right next to you," Haytham said.

"Oh."

"Nervous?"

"No," she said, lying.

"You’re allowed to be," he said.

She was quiet a moment, “I don’t want to mess up," she said softly. “This is my first time in the field."

"You can," she turned and clearly gave him an odd look. “I totally fucked up my first mission on Alpha."

"But here you are," she said.

"A-one liked me," Haytham said. “He doesn’t give a shit if you fail the first time. It’s Alpha, we get hard, shitty, missions, that we sometimes fail. He just cares if you work well with the rest of us and that you keep your shit together," which was of course why Haytham was keeping quiet about his own freak out. He just had to keep it together, because he could do this. You learned to not want to let Altair down, because he was great and amazing. They sometimes teased him and called him old man or ‘dad’ but really without Altair there was no Alpha. Not in this incarnation at least. Altair and Munahid were the only members of Alpha from when Altair hadn’t been A-one, every other member of Alpha had retired when the old A-one had stepped down. Haytham had a feeling he would too. He didn’t want to follow anyone else but Altair.

"He said this was my baptism," she said, still sounding unsure.

"Baptism by fire," Haytham said with a wicked smirk,  "this is just the start."

"Alpha-Charlie, this is AC-one," Altair’s voice suddenly cut through all comm lines. When Haytham looked at the compound he saw all the lights were out and through night vision he could see men at the gate arguing. “AC-eight and his squad have infiltrated the compound. Prepare to move out."

"Show him you deserve to be on Alpha," Haytham said and looked at her, still speaking over the private comm link he’d established. “You wanna be on Alpha the only guy you gotta impress is him."

"No pressure," she said sarcastically.

"You want to be with the best you need to be the best. You wanna be on Alpha; prove it. We don’t give two shits if you aren’t here with us tomorrow. You’re just an Alpha-Beta: nameless, annoying and replaceable."

"I’m none of those things," AC-seven said and he knew she was glaring at him. She didn’t appreciate being told that.

"Prove it," Haytham said and pulled his short sword from where he tucked it up against his back.

"Alpha-Charlie we’re clear to go, follow me in," and Haytham followed Altair as he started for the gate which was lit, the gate opening slowly. Haytham squeezed the hilt of his sword as they walked through the darkness, nearly twenty of them, silent as ghosts. They stopped at the very edge of the light and waited, ringing the edge of ‘safety’ for these poor assholes. The gate finished opening and the lights went off all at once. “Take no prisoners," Altair said in a soft voice over comms, “this is the enemy and between us and the target," and Haytham saw a blur off to his side. A moment later Altair was airborne and had a knife buried in the throat of one of the guards. Then he was up and onto the next one.

Haytham moved with the rest of Alpha-Charlie after Altair. He smiled a little. Not from the joy of the kill, but when he looked down at his hand attached to the hilt of his sword through a man’s neck it didn’t shake. He’d make it through.

—

Altair brought up a blueprint of the building, a much more in depth one than the one the Assassins had been able to gather. Mira had sent it to him. He pulled it up in front of his eyes and shared it with Munahid as his men broke themselves into six  units of three . “We need to cover as much ground as possible, quickly," Altair said as an alert in his helmet told him that the platoon at the law firm had also hit hard and was preparing to search.

"Start at the bottom, work our way up," Munahid said.

Altair looked up at the building, it was a good seven stories tall but was wide and there was a lot of space to cover and search. “They have a landing pad up there. They’d have a hover come get them if we did that. We need to start on both ends. Block the exits."

"So a squad goes up to the top and holds it?"

"Yeah," Altair opened connection to support, “Support I need eyes on the top of the building. What’s it look like?"

"Clear so far," support said.

"Tell me if that changes," he looked at Munahid, turning his head to do so. “Flip you for the bottom," Altair said.

Munahid scoffed, “I’ll take top," Munahid said and Altair could imagine the roll of his eyes.

"Good, I hate top-

"Really I’ve heard differently-

Altair smacked him on the back of the helmet, “Smart ass. I still need to write you up for letting A-four out, don’t make me make it worse," Munahid laughed at that as Altair mapped out where he wanted Munahid to go his search. “Take two squads up to the top floor, work down, we’ll meet in the middle."

"Yes, sir," Munahid said.

Altair opened wide comms, “Two squads will be following AC-two to the upper levels. Two others are with me. The remaining two will be watching the gate and the roof. You," he pointed at someone, “your unit is on the roof, and yours is watching the gate," he pointed to another person. “Classic is to be engaged at all times without exception, if you want night vision or IR use your helmet, that’s why you have it. We’ve been authorized to kill on sight anyone who poses any threat," Altair said.

"Yes, sir," came the reply from all his men.

"Good," he closed the wide comms and opened them to Chris  and AB-1 ,  he saw Haytham was with Munahid, the other unit leader was someone from Echo. “AC-six and seven, you copy?"

"Yes, sir," they said as the unit told to guard the gate started to prepare it. The lights would come on once the main force had left and give power long enough to close the gate.

"You’re with me, we’re on the bottom floors," and without further preamble started for the building. The unit to take the roof was ahead of them, double timing it to the door and then going into the dark building. “AC-six, take your men, start on the west side of the building, we meet in the foyer."

"You got it AC-one," Chris saluted him and then led the other two men down the hall. Munahid and his men came in after them and started for the stairs, since the elevators weren’t working. “AC-seven, twelve, fifteen, you’re with me, we’re checking the east side," he said.

"Sir," he heard one of them say, he wasn’t sure who it was but it wasn’t AB-one so he didn’t really care.

The compound was still in a state of confusion and people rushed about, trying to figure out what was going on. They barely noticed Alpha-Charlie honestly, their suits blending into the darkness. Even the Echo and Foxtrot guys he had with him moved with great ease. They left those people alone, they weren’t a threat and barely showed up on Classic.

At the edge of the glass building Altair split them up, “AC-seven, you’re with me, AC-twelve and fifteen go start at the north end. We’ll meet back up front," twelve and fifteen nodded. He motioned to seven and she followed him.

They opened the first door, nothing. They checked each room systematically in their quadrant before meeting back up with Chris and twelve and fifteen. By now though security had gotten its shit together and realized someone was in the building. Altair killed a man without pausing as soon as he rounded the corner, just pushing his knife right into his throat and then kept walking. As a larger unit they went up to the second floor and split again.

"AB-one," Altair said on private comms as they searched.

"Yes, sir?" she asked.

"Can you smell him?" he asked.

"Ah… not in this suit sir. It auto filters the air. I can’t smell anything."

"Take a whiff, see if you can," Altair said.

"Are you sur-

"AB-one," he growled, “you do not question my orders," dammit this was going to be fucking annoying if he had this damn girl questioning him all the time.

"Yes, sir," she quickly popped the seal on her helmet and took it off. As she did flashlight beams appeared down the hall, though were pointed down so they didn’t trip over anything. Altair watched the beams and he heard her inhale deeply. But the guards also heard her too. “Shit," she whispered and put her helmet back on when a beam of light tracked across them.

"Hold it!" one of the guards yelled and ran at them. He had a baton in his hand and Altair knew from experience that they had steel cores and if needed they could shuck off the outer baton to reveal a wicked long dagger.

They raised their baton as they got close, their beams focused on seven and Altair struck. He punched the guard in the gut and when they doubled over he grabbed them by the ears and rammed them into his armored knee. He broke the man’s face, and probably killed him. Regardless they fell and didn’t get back up. When he looked over at the other guard he was in time to see AB-one break his neck from behind, using her small stature and the power of the Alpha suit to yank the guard back at an awkward angle.

"Nice," Altair said, “you smell him?"

"Not on this floor. It’s hard to sometimes tell in buildings like this. The air gets cycled around so much it’s hard to find the scent unless its on the ground."

"Alright, lets keep looking," and they continued down the hall. They left normal people alone but they were few here, obviously since it was night there weren’t that many people, but they’d probably also evacuated everyone. They downed any guards and anyone who got in their way because Altair didn’t have time for heros who thought they had a chance to stop them.

Second floor was also empty.

From comms he heard Munahid was also coming up short. Altair didn’t like the sound of that. It meant they just hadn’t gotten to him or he wasn’t in the building. At the very least no one had made it to the roof  and there wasn’t a hover in sight. Abstergo was probably too worried about Marcusville’s anti air protections to send in a hover. Even the Assassins worried about the anti air here, Marcusville was famous for shooting down jets that flew too low or too close and had even once managed to hit a heli.

There was no ping on his helmet about D-one’s platoon finding Desmond either, so they would keep looking. The Templars had made a grave miscalculation when they decided to pick him off the street. The Mentor had designated Desmond a class-one interest to the Order meaning he would be found and Order would turn the NCC upside down to locate him. Altair still didn’t know why Desmond had gained such a high class for just being a little boy but he knew the Audi had a reason and he would obey without question.

"AC-one," he was contacted by AC-eight in the security room. “We have a problem."

"What’s that?" Altair asked.

"We have a lot of guards up here. Too many to hold back on our own, AC-ten is injured, arm might be broken."

"Deal with it AC-eight," Altair growled.

"They have some new suit," eight said.

"What?" Atair didn’t stop moving though as he and AB- one kept looking through the rooms, clearing them.

"We only got a little look at it before we retreated behind the door, but it looked like Abstergo is trying to recreate our suits. They’re bigger though, more armored."

"You’re going to have to deal with it, and relay this information to support, they may have other orders for dealing with it."

"We won’t be able to retreat with him in front of us," eight said.

"Then kill it-

"AC-one," AB-one’s voice suddenly jumped through his comms, she sounded excited.

"One sec," he put eight on hold, “What?" he asked.

"I got scent," and he could imagine her smug grin.

"Good, lets go," and he followed her, “Eight?"

"We’re not sure how to kill it, sir. We tried already. When I say its armored I really mean its armored. The damn thing is basically made of metal, we can’t cut it. It threw ten aside like he was a ragdoll."

"What does support say?"

"Kill and retrieve."

Altair sighed, of course, they wanted to see what this suit looked like and if it was better than theirs. “I’m sending someone up to deal with it," he disconnected and he was surprised when they started going down, instead of up. They were taking a stairway in the back, out of the way, one easily missed. “You sure we’re going the right way?" he asked AB-one.

"Yes, sir," she said, “They must be trying to get him out of here."

"Wonderful," Altair muttered and then opened a connection to Chris, “AC-six," Altair said.

"Copy," Chris said.

"I need you to go upstairs to the security room now."

"What for?"

"I need you to blow something up."

"Really?" Chris sounded way too happy about getting to blow something up. “Two times in a few days; everything is coming up me."

"Shut up," Altair said as he and AB-one got to the ground floor. “Take the guys we have on that floor and go up to security. According to AC-eight they’re being trapped inside the security room by a man in a metal suit. I need you to take care of it."

"Oh, sir; you can count on me."

"Do not destroy it. Support wants it back to poke it."

"You got it!" Chris said. “Tell those damsels up there I’m coming," Altair rolled his eyes and cut the comm and opened one to eight, told him someone was coming and then focused back on AB-one.

She was leading him out the main building and across the campus to a single story building that when they entered was a garage. “It ends here," she said, standing at the head of a line of suvs.

"Gate unit, there is a suv heading your way," Altair said opening the comms to them and started to double time it towards the gate, AB-one behind him.

"We see it, its going to ram the gate."

"Do not let it leave the compound for any reason. We have reason to believe A-twelve is in there."

"We’ll stop it, sir."

Altair opened comms to Munahid, “Get your squad down here, he isn’t up there."

"We’ll be there in two minutes," Munahid said.

"Gate unit?" Altair asked them.

"It swerved, sir, going to make another pass. We think its going to try and hit as many of us as possible. We got a few shots off but didn’t hit anything."

"Damnit," Altair muttered to himself. “Stop that suv."

"Yessir!"

"You’re sure he’s in there?" Altair asked AB-one.

"I just know where the scent led me," she said. “And that was the garage and an empty space."

Altair cursed a bit more but they were now almost to the gate. The power was still out and Altair switched out of Classic and into night vision, it was better than the night vision on his visor. He saw the suv idling about two hundred feet away, the shiny grill pointed at the gate, the bright headlamps illuminating the gate and everyone around it. He narrowed his eyes dialing his vision so the headlamps didn’t hinder his vision.

"What should we do, sir?" one of the gate unit asked when he and AB-one arrived.

"Blow the tires," Altair said and pulled a few, thin, throwing knives from the deep impression on his thigh. Altair wasn’t a perfect hit, but when he did hit he was lethal.

"Sir, AC-nineteen has a pistol-

"No guns. I don’t want you risk hurting who they have in there," he looked at AC-nineteen, “Unless you can hit the driver on your first shot?" he asked.

"I’m a Master Marksman, sir," she said confidently.

"We’ve left the building," Munahid’s voice said briefly.

"Make it count than nineteen," Altair said. The suv had seen Munahid and his men leaving the building, meaning they had night vision, also meaning they knew reinforcements had arrived. It backed up a little and then kicked up gravel and dirt and started to speed towards them. “Don’t let it get through," Altair ordered, and moved around to get a better target on its wheels.

He heard a gunshot, the suv swerved, but got back on target. Another gunshot and it was super close now. Altair was about to throw when someone else hit it and suv swerved again as a third gunshot rang out. The back tire blew out and with the swerving it flipped and started to roll. Everyone jumped out of the way as the suv crashed into the gate, the forward momentum suddenly checked by the metal bars and without enough force to rip the gate  open. Everyone was still for a moment.

Altair moved first and went to the suv, climbed up onto it where it had rolled onto its side and looked in. The driver had been shot in the head, killing him instantly, there had been a woman in the passenger seat who looked like she’d tried to take the wheel after he’d been killed. She also had been shot in the head. He turned away from that and looked in the backseat.

Against the door, unmoving, was Desmond. His hands and feet were tied and he was blindfolded. Altair lurched forward right into the vehicle, the broken glass of the window crunched under his boots as he carefully stepped around Desmond’s form. “A-twelve," he said, reaching down. He was about to touch him when his visor alerted him to movement beside him. He looked and saw a man from the back getting to his feet, looking dazed, a bullet having grazed his cheek, taking out a piece of his ear.

The man and Altair saw each other at the same time and while the man fumbled for a knife Altair shoved himself against the hood of the suv to get around the seat. He grabbed the wrist holding the knife, cracked it and took it in his other hand. He then slashed the knife across the man’s throat. Blood squirted out onto his black Alpha suit but Altair barely noticed. The man collapsed and Altair turned back to Desmond.

The boy didn’t respond when Altair touched him. Shit where was Diyari when he needed him? “One," Munahid said.

"I got him," Altair said.

"We’re up here to take him," Munahid said,  Altair looked up, someone was standing above him on the side of the flipped suv, ready to grab Desmond so Altair could climb out. “Also there was an explosion from inside a few seconds ago…"

"Just AC-six, he has authorization," Altair said and cut the ropes on Desmond’s hands and feet. His wrists were raw and while not bloody were chaffed and bright red and Altair frowned, when he took Desmond’s blindfold off his eyes were closed. Altair cranked up his hearing to hear Desmond. It took him a few seconds but then he heard it; the soft, slow, but steady, beat of a young heart. He was alive. Thank the god. He leaned down and picked Desmond up. He made a soft noise, like of protest and Altair blanched when he saw bone pushing against skin from under it in a way it shouldn’t. Broken arm. It seemed his super reinforced skin didn’t carry over to his bones. “Who’s up there?" he asked Munahid.

"It’s me," he said.

"Be gentle with him then, he’s got a broken arm, probably a concussion," he lifted Desmond up to Munahid. Desmond didn’t make a sound when Munahid lifted him up. Altair crawled out of the suv as Munahid was handing Desmond down to another member of Alpha-Charlie.

"Support," Altair said as he jumped down, “we’ve located the target. Call back Delta-Charlie. Alpha-Charlie will be pulling back."

"Copy that Alpha-Charlie-one," support said.

"All Alpha-Charlie, this is AC-one, report to the main gate, we have A-twelve," Altair said over wide comms.

"AC-one, this is AC-six. May take me and the ones up here a few minutes. We’re currently trying to get the shell off the lobster."

"Bring the entire damn thing, we’re pulling out now," Altair said sternly. “Or in peices I don’t care."

"Roger that," Chris said.

"I want that suv cleared out of the way," Altair ordered, pointing at the rolled car. Alpha-Charlie at the gate made to start to push it out of the way, one of them was with Desmond, on the ground, holding him close to them gently.

"Quite a day," Munahid said next to him.

"When we get back home I’m holding off on missions for a while," he sighed. “I’m too old for this shit."

Munahid chuckled, “Sure you are, one," he could imagine Munahid’s grin.

"How’d Haytham hold up?"

"Fine. He seemed extra into it. Killed most of the guards before some of us even saw them coming."

"He’s still getting psych."

"Good. How you holding up?"

"I just wanna sleep," Altair sighed, he looked around his men. “We have two injuries, I’d say that’s pretty good."

"Who else got hurt?"

"One of the Delta boys. Two broken arms, one for him, one for A-twelve." They looked up when the power in the main building went on, but all the outlying lights went out. The lights would draw the guards from the dark area and into the building. “Alright people let’s start getting the hell out of here," and he made a hand motion once Alpha-Charlie moved the suv out of the way.

"What about the guys in the facility, sir?" someone asked.

"Just move it," Altair ordered and was surprised when he saw his missing men come around the back of the building. He knew they’d gone in like that, but around the back? Chris had the armored man slung across his shoulders like he was nothing. Mira was in the center of the group, staying protected. “You get the lobster’s shell off?" Altair asked Chris.

"Negative. Got us a live lobster. Didn’t want to set it off or anything. I’ll let the tech boys back at the bureau look into getting our friend out," and he patted the armored ass of the man shaped suit with his gloved hand.

"Okay, everyone get through the gate," everyone else was already gone, heading for the suvs a quarter mile away. The infiltration unit made it past, the one with a hurt arm had their arm in a sling and Jari kept turning to look at him. Altair smiled a little, well at least being Diyari’s partner wasn’t totally useless.

Altair and Munahid waited until the rest of the platoon had passed through the gates before following them.  "Support," Altair said, “Alpha-Charlie is on their way home."

"We’ll be waiting for you Alpha-Charlie," support said.

When they reached the suvs the rest of the platoon was getting in and Altair looked back at Abok Industries. The lights were back on and he saw movement by the gate. He zoomed and saw them trying to pry open the gate that the suv had crashed into. He saw other cars waiting behind the gate, ready to get through. “Get a move on people we got incoming," Altair ordered and climbed into a suv with Munahid. AC-thirteen was sitting in the back with Altair and they had buckled Desmond into place between them, and had used some of the bandages from the back to bind his broken arm to his chest so it wouldn’t get jostled. “Move it," he ordered the driver who nodded and started up the suv. They didn’t turn on the headlamps as they left Abok Industries.

Altair looked behind them, night and zoom cranked up to see what was going on. They had a suv smash through the gate the rest of the way. Several cars blasted through after it. “We got incoming vehicles at our five," someone said over comms, probably someone from one of the rear suvs.

"Split up, reconvene at the bureau," Altair ordered and at an intersection the suvs turned in different directions. Altair and AC-thirteen watched their six once they split from the others and they saw the Abok cars turn towards them. “Don’t speed," he told who was driving as he merged with traffic, early morning traffic headed to work. The driver kept pace with them and looked like he was headed into Marcusville. The Abok car sped up towards them but was blocked by traffic and Altair and AC-thirteen ducked down, “Take off your helmets, now," Altair ordered the two up front. He heard the pop-hiss of the helm seal breaking and threw his own off as well.

Altair crawled into the back of the suv, there were civi clothes back here for if you needed them. “Take off your top, put on real clothes," he handed shirts to AC-thirteen who handed them up to the driver and passenger. The guys up front took turns popping out of the top part of their suits and pulling the normal shirts on over them, one putting it on while the other held the wheel. Altair stayed in the back, leaned down and out of sight.

"Templars on our left," AC-thirteen said and no one looked at the car. The thing about Assassin suvs was that they looked like normal suvs and weren’t new or shiny like the Abok ones. They looked like they worked for a living and had some wear on them and were all different colors, though all rather dark; black, blue, green, brown. The Abok car came up beside them and looked in, to see if they were the Assassins they were hunting for. Altair peered over the top of the car side and looked. He saw the Templars looking at them critically but none of them looked.

Then their driver seemed to notice the car occupants next to them staring and turned to them, smiled, and waved. Altair snorted when the Templars looked pissed and annoyed and put on more speed to catch up to the next suv in traffic.

"Good one," Altair called up to the front as he crawled into the back seat.

"Thank you, sir," they said with a grin on their voice.

"Get us the fuck home," Altair ordered.

"Yes, sir, would do so gladly," he said.

—

When they arrived at the bureau Altair got out first and AC-thirteen handed Desmond to Altair. Along the way to the bureau, once they’d lost the Templars, Altair had tried to wake Desmond up, somehow. He’d been unsuccessful. He cradled the boy against his chest as he walked into the bureau, his helmet back in place since he couldn’t carry it and the kid. He was concerned about the not waking up but he was more concerned about the slow heartbeat even more. Desmond had said his heart was fully formed, if only a bit larger than normal. A large heart in a small body shouldn’t have as slow a heartbeat as it currently had.

Altair took him up to the med ward and the doctors were there to meet him. They had Altair place Desmond on the bed before shooing him out with a ‘thank you One, we’ll take it from here’ and Altair hadn’t been able to protest fast enough before he was outside the med ward. He stood there, staring at the door with a frown and looked when someone came up next to him. “Long night," Munahid said.

"It has been," Altair agreed. “Everyone safe?" he hadn’t even checked, he’d been too worried over Desmond.

"Last few are in route now. Took them a while to shake the Templars."

"Good," Altair sighed softly.

"He’ll be okay," Munahid told Altair and put a hand on his shoulder.

Altair sighed, “Time for debrief," Altair said, stepping out of Munahid’s grip. “And then we’ll… deal with this in the morning," he popped the seal on his suit.

"There is something else, sir," Munahid said.

"What?" he asked, taking off his helmet.

"Audi wants to see you."

"Tell him he can talk to me after I’ve had more than five hours of sleep," Altair said, “Now lets go get ready for debrief," and started to walk away, his helmet hanging from the tips of his fingers. Munahid followed obediently a few seconds later.


	10. Avatar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Ezio bits of this chapter are brought to you by [hirarandom](http://hirarandom.tumblr.com/) who paid for them (she paid for a lot more, but they'll come up later in the story). You can find out about commissions [here](http://nottheshepardyourelookingfor.tumblr.com/comm)

The air tasted like salt and smelled like brine. Ezio had never seen the sea before he'd trekked across Yukon, the big province that took up most of the FRN's northern interior. All he'd ever seen was lake Huron and Erie, the lakes that sat on either side of St. Adams like cupped hands, and those lakes looked like oceans but weren't. His father had told him the ocean smelled different, the tides rose and fell, the wind was crisp and smelled of salt and low tide which would smell like rot or it could smell like the vast sea. His father promised him looking at the sea was nothing like looking at the great lakes. He said he'd know the difference between the sea and the lake as soon as he got near it.

Before Ezio stood in front of the ocean though he didn't understand the difference. The wind tugged at his long hair as he stood on Vancouver Island, out away from the city and the Salish Sea so he could see the great Pacific ocean. There were seabirds above him, ones he didn't know the names of. To his back were trees, and beyond that the forgotten city of old Victoria. But before him was the great, expansive, dark, north Pacific ocean. It took his breath away to stare at the ocean, the waves crashing into a stone beach. And his father had been right; it wasn't like Huron or Erie. It was something else, something so much more amazing and grand.

Ezio set his backpack down next to a tree that had washed up on the shore, its bark bleached white from the salt and wind and sun, and sat on it himself. Ezio liked to think he was something important, he was the son of the Mentor's brother, the only man in a long time to have four children in the fortress. His uncle was the Mentor and his father had once upon a time led the Alpha squad before hanging up his sword to take a desk job under his brother. He and his siblings were often the talk of the fortress, if only because they all had the same father and he Federico's full brother; something that was basically unheard of.

Sitting in front of the vast ocean and the vast sea, stretching out as far as he could see, Ezio felt tiny and insignificant. He was a speck of dust on the Earth, clinging on by his fingertips. He knew he could have a big head, sometimes way too full of himself, but seeing the ocean for the first time was humbling. It was like the first time he'd seen the open sky, or the stars, for real and not just in the sim rooms. That he was small and the world was so much bigger than him.

He sat there for a while, watching the tide come in. He started when an orange tennis ball flew over his shoulder and landed in the stones in front of him. A few seconds later a dog jumped over the tree, startling him, tail waving around proudly as it chased after the orange ball. Shit! He hadn't even heard it coming up on him. Some Assassin he made, a damn dog had been able to sneak up on him. Ezio turned to see who had thrown the ball and was met by the sight of two blondes at the edge of the trees.

"Sorry!" the taller one called, waving his arm above his head. Ezio just raised his hand back, he'd been outside for barely a year, and most of that was in the mostly uninhabited Yukon, he wasn't completely used to all the ways society functioned yet. Ezio started again when the dog scrambled over the tree. Ezio was still amazed by dogs, that you could just... own an animal. In the fortress there were no pets and the only dogs belonged to the trackers on Foxtrot or Delta, and were specially bred from old world dogs to be attack dogs as well as scent dogs. He watched the dog, a sort of a red and gray and spotted thing with a fairly long coat, run up to the small blonde and drop the tennis ball in his hand. The blonde chucked the ball down the beach, though not in the same direction as Ezio this time.

He watched them for a time as they walked towards the way the smaller blonde had thrown the ball before deciding they weren't a threat to him and looked away, back to the ocean. The spell of the sea wasn't as strong this time around though and ocean seemed less grand than the first time he'd seen it. Maybe because now it wasn't the first time. He didn't like the idea of ever finding the sight of the ocean to be common place and forgettable, not when it was such an amazing thing.

Ezio sat for a while longer, he could hear the other people on the beach, yelling, calling the dog, but at a distance that Ezio couldn't hear what they were saying, only hear the sound of their voice. He looked towards them and turned his ears up and zoomed in on the scene as the younger one threw the tennis ball into the ocean and the dog chased after it, taking off like a shot. He looked at the older man first, he looked like he was in his thirties, and wore his long blonde hair in a ponytail, though Ezio guessed it was more a style than his own long hair which was just because he hadn't cut it in a while. He had a sketchbook on his lap, a large messenger bag by his feet. The other blonde was younger, looked maybe ten or eleven years old and he was playing fetch with the dog, wrestling it from his mouth and then hurling it back into the waves.

Ezio watched them for a while, listening to them, though they didn't say much. Mainly just the kid yelling at the dog, 'Salai get the ball!' 'Go get it boy!' 'Good boy!' 'Lets have the ball- gooood boy' and every iteration under the sun. Then, to Ezio's surprise the kid looked at him, like right at him and Ezio didn't have the social knowledge to look away. Assassins didn't look away from each other when caught looking, if they were looking it was for a good reason. He had pale blue eyes that seemed to cut right into Ezio and he wasn't quite sure why. That made him finally look away.

He started when the orange tennis ball landed in front of his feet like it had been put there by the god. Unthinkingly he reached down and picked the ball up. It was wet from spit and the ocean but Ezio barely noticed. What he did notice was the dog that came racing up to him, wagging its tail at him happily. Ezio didn't know dogs, or breeds, but he knew this was a happy dog, his bushy tail wagging quickly back and forth, tongue lolling from his mouth. He held the tennis ball out to the dog and it sniffed it and looked at him expectantly.

He wanted Ezio to throw it. Was he allowed to play fetch with someone else's dog? He looked at the people on the beach, they were both looking at him and he had his eyes and ears dialed back so he couldn't see their details or hear if they were saying anything. Ezio stood and the dog pranced a little, excited for him to throw the ball. Ezio cocked his arm back and threw with his entire body. The ball went flying and the dog took off so fast he kicked up a spray of rocks. Ezio watched the dog race down the beach at high speed where the ball vanished amid the gray rocks, past the two blondes. Even without his ears dialed up he could hear the older one laughing.

"Salai!" the younger one yelled, loud enough for Ezio to hear unhelped, "Here boy!" the dog picked the ball up and trotted over to the kid. The kid ruffled the dog's neck. The older man gave him something and the kid did something to the collar around the dog's neck and then to Ezio's surprise it started walking down the beach towards him. The dog stood in front of him, looking up at him with its pale blue eyes, the orange tennis ball in his mouth. A note was attached to the collar and Ezio crouched, taking it off.

In a very messy hand that made Ezio's eyes swim it said, 'my name is Salai, I like to play fetch. My master's arm is getting tired. Will you play fetch with me?' Ezio found himself smiling and looked at the two blondes who were looking back at him. They both seemed at ease and friendly. He raised the note, showing he'd read it and then as he stood he took the tennis ball from Salai's mouth. Ezio threw the ball and the dog was flying again, this time Ezio had sent him into the surf. Salai didn't even notice and crashed into the waves at a full run.

Ezio spent a while playing fetch with the dog, throwing the ball again and again, Salai panting, but his tail always wagging, and his mouth always pulled back into a dog grin when he brought the ball back to Ezio. He tired slowly. He was still in great shape from his training but but throwing a ball wasn't like throwing a knife, which he was used to. Salai tired even slower and was just a massive ball of energy, running after the ball again and again. Eventually Ezio had to stop, his arm hurt.

"I think that's enough Salai," Ezio said as he took the ball from Salai one last time. He picked up his big backpack and pulled it over his shoulder. Then he walked over to the blondes, Salai following. He threw the ball one last time, trying to aim it towards the two men on the beach. Salai didn't run after it this time, but lopped after it excitedly all the same.

Salai turned to the kid when he got the ball and they ruffled their neck again, petting him. Salai's tail hadn't stopped wagging the entire time Ezio had seen him. As he got closer the man looked up from his sketchbook. "Hi," he said, raising his hand to Ezio. He had blue eyes too, brighter, more saturated than the boy's.

"Hi," Ezio said, standing in front of the two of them, who he assumed were father and son. The kid didn't look much like the older man but Ezio figured he took after his mother, the same way he took after his father and Federico took after their mother. "Ah... thanks for letting me play with your dog," he tried not to be weird about it.

The man smiled, "Thanks for playing with him. He usually wears us both out before he's ready to go home. Right Salai?" he asked, his voice changing suddenly, getting deeper and yet somehow more excited. Salai barked, his tail going even faster if possible. "I'm Leo," he said and stood up, offering his hand.

Ezio took it, Leo had a firm grip and strong hands with callouses on it, but not in the places Ezio's were, or in the places he was expecting them. "Ezio," he said.

"That's Clay," Leo pointed to his son, letting go of Ezio's hand. "What brings you to the California?" he asked.

"Just traveling," Ezio said.

"Really? Your parents around?"

"No, just me," Ezio said and suddenly felt self conscious.

"Huh... that's pretty grown up. Most young people don't travel alone anymore."

"Really?" Fuck that was news to him. Maybe it was why the fortress recommended you travel with a friend at first, also to pool resources. But Ezio hadn't wanted to go where his friends were going and vice versa. They all wanted to go to S Fla, he'd wanted to go to California. S Fla sounded too hot to Ezio and you needed to speak Spanglish to really get around S Fla. Ezio hadn't taken Spanglish in his language classes, taking up the dead Italian and Latin language instead. He'd wanted to be able to speak the same tongue as his ancestors had, before the Collapse and Italian had been common place in Italy and not German.

"Yeah. So you're out here by yourself," Leo said, he was holding his sketchbook in one hand, "just out and about?"

"I'm from St. Adams," Ezio supplied, "wanted to head west now that I'm out of school," all the cadets had the same lie about where they came from. They'd grown up in the suburbs around St. Adams and now that they were done with grade school they were going out, seeing the world. It wasn't a lie really, just the school part.

Leo smiled warmly, "Well Vancouver is a great place. How long you been here?"

"I just got here. I wanted to come see the ocean for the first time first."

Leo laughed, "Well there it is," he extended his arm to the great ocean. "Everything you expected?" he'd never met a man who smiled as much as Leo did. Not that the fortress was humorless or without happiness. But they were so... serious most of the time. Not that Ezio blamed them, they were an army, there wasn't always time for playfulness.

"It's better," Ezio said, allowing a smile to come to his mouth too.

"Well we're heading back to Vancouver now that Salai's run all his energy out, want to join us for lunch?"

Ezio blinked. All the stories about society Ezio had heard told him that most normal people were rather selfish and so caught up with themselves they rarely thought about others. He'd seen some of that in the Yukon. People were closed off and didn't like outsiders. He wasn't expecting Leo to be so open. "Uh," he honestly had no practical or book idea of what to do in situations like this. He should be cautious, right? But there was nothing about Leo that made Ezio feel like he needed to be cautious. "Sure," he said, "I don't have a car," or a bike. He'd walked across the Yukon to get to California and saved his allowance so when he got here he'd have plenty of money for rent and food, and stuff. Ezio was looking forward to owning stuff like he didn't while he was in the fortress.

"No problem, I do. You can ride in back with Salai, he seems to like you," Leo smiled and Ezio found himself smiling as well. "C'mon," he motioned, "Clay lets go," he said and Clay hooked a leash onto Salai's collar. Ezio adjusted his backpack before following after Leo, heading back towards the ruins of Old Victoria.

\--

Under normal circumstances Altair woke up at seven hundred hours. Past few days though he'd been waking up at odd hours, sleeping even odder ones. After the debrief he and his men had been given leave off tomorrow. Nothing pressing would bother them, especially not Altair who'd just not just come back from a torture cell in Salt Lake City but also found a lost boy. He and Alpha deserved their rest.

Despite returning to the bureau at about four hundred hours Altair still woke up at seven. He stared up at the ceiling a few minutes before reminding himself he could go back to sleep. He blinked up at the ceiling before rolling onto his side and going back to sleep. He woke up a few hours later and sat right up in bed, suddenly painfully awake.

Altair scrambled out of bed. It was light out, the sun up high, it was closer to noon than not, though already afternoon for society. Alpha was sleeping still, his men all in their bunk beds lined up on either side of the room. He dressed himself in his casual uniform, white shirt tucked into black pants, the bottoms inside sturdy boots. He ran a comb quickly through his hair to get it to be presentable and went to the big gang bathroom and brushed his teeth. Then he went and stood at the door of the room Alpha was sleeping in. They all slept soundly despite two bunks being empty, one for Diyari who was still in his chemical coma, and one of the twins' beds. Sleeping his kids looked so peaceful and not like each one of them could kill you with their bare hands. Even Chris, who'd gladly blow you up to kingdom come, or Ehan who would break your neck with one hand, looked like angels. You'd never expect them to be monsters.

"Alpha!" Altair barked, standing at parade rest, because they'd slept in enough. It was nearly eleven according to his internal clock. He couldn't let them sleep in too late or they'd be off their normal sleeping schedule. He heard some grumbling, "Alpha!" Altair called again.

"Daaaad," Sally whined from her bunk she and Sarah were sharing, like they often did after a big mission, the twins wanting to remind and reassure each other that they were still there and whole.

"Alpha!" Altair called again.

"Alpha!" Munahid called back as he sat up with a serious case of bedhead. "Fucking... Alpha," he groaned and Altair laughed.

"Five more minutes dad," Chris complained, pulling a pillow over his head.

"Alpha, time to start the day," and everyone groaned when Altair said that but they all slide from their beds. He saw Alpha-Beta-One do the same, and she seemed even more exhausted and unsure than the others. "Clean up, get dressed, lunch will be ready soon."

"Yeah," Haytham yawned and scratched his thigh idly.

Altair watched fondly as Alpha woke, stumbling for a minute before coming awake sharply. Only Alpha-Beta-One woke slowly and seemed to have a hard time getting it together. Some members of his squad went to shower, others just got dressed. They all made their beds and then stood beside them, in an easy parade rest and talked.

"Alpha," Altair said and everyone straightened to attention, Alpha-Beta-One a beat behind, not knowing quite how their morning routine was. "Everyone sleep well?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Good. Relax," they all fell back into parade rest but didn't talk, they all were looking at him. "We have one order of business before I let you go find grub. Alpha-Beta-One, come forward," he ordered, beckoning. Hesitantly at first she stepped forward. Everyone looked at her with interest since few had seen her outside of an Alpha suit. "This is Kaniehtí:io Ruiz-

"Can a get a spell check on that name?" Haytham asked, leaning out of file to raise his hand  little.

"Ziio is fine," she said awkwardly, "Otherwise it's a mouthful."

"So everyone," Altair put a hand on Ziio's shoulder, "be nice to our little girl. She's delicate and new. I don't wanna hear about any of you breaking her before her baptism is over."

"Yes, sir," they said.

"Can we break her after her baptism is over?" Chris asked and they all laughed.

"Only if I'm allowed to break you," Ziio said.

They all looked at Chris expectantly, "Oh honey, you can break me any day," and he winked at her. Alpha laughed again. Ziio looked positively flustered, clearly not expecting Chris to say that.

"Chris," Altair said sternly.

"Yeah dad, I'll leave lil sis alone," Chris waved.

"Good," he squeezed Ziio's shoulder, "Dismissed. Go get some lunch," and he released them.

Kanwai immediately put her arm around Ziio's shoulder, "Don't mind Chris. He's kinda a creep-" he heard her say as they walked out.

"You coming with?" Munahid asked Altair, they were the last two in the room.

"I'll be along in a little bit-

"Don't make me have to tell Rauf you skipped meals again," Munahid said, brows going up.

"Please," Altair scoffed, "I'm holding off on lunch for a bit since I'm about to go talk to him."

"Ah," Munahid nodded. "Tell him I said hi if you aren't too busy making kissy faces at him," and Altair shoved Munahid out of the room.

"Why the hell do I keep you around?" Altair called as Munahid walked down the hall.

"Cause anyone else would punch you in the face," Munahid called back.

"They wouldn't dare!"

"I dunno, sir, your face is pretty punchable-

"Oh get to lunch," and Altair closed the door.

\--

Rauf had his hand pressed to his pedestal, controlling his classroom though subtle motions of his fingers on the manipulable surface. Right now the classroom looked more like a mountain, with rocks and trees and the sounds of the mountain, the ceiling was a night sky. Rauf's pedestal contained the only real light in the entire room, which was about acre in area, and his eyes were dialed up to see in infrared so the light from the pedestal didn't interfere with his sight. He could see his students moving in the vaguely triangular shaped room. They'd been in here all night with him and he wasn't letting them rest. Of course not, it had rained that night, or rather Rauf had made it rain.

The exercise was to survive in the wild with nothing but a knife and avoid the dangers Rauf was throwing at them. While most things in the room weren't real stimulation from the room itself made you think it was real. If you looked a the room with a filter, outside of the room, like through a camera that couldn't be tricked by the sim room, it would appear as a dark, white, room, with various boxes or polls that were 'real' things you could touch. To Rauf and the children though it was a mountain forest, petrichor thick in the air mixed with the smell of charred wood from the 'forest fire' Rauf had created a few hours ago.

Admittedly Rauf was getting tired. Before he'd become a teacher he could function on little to no sleep for a few days. But he was used to a regular sleep schedule now and staying up all night wasn't easy for him and he knew it was just as difficult for his students. But the exercise was almost over meaning everyone could get some sleep.

His podium dinged, drawing his attention from the mountain woods back down to it. He had his messages silenced unless they were sent from very specific people like the Mentor. Rauf blinked away his heat vision and dialed his eyes back to not be blinded by the light. His brows jumped up to his hairline when he saw who'd messaged him. Guiltily he looked at the sim room and with a wave of his hand across the glass top he started the sub routine that would start a sunrise. Then he became totally disengaged and opened his message.

Rauf got another surprised when instead of an actual message it was a little avatar, one Rauf was familiar with; the message was from Altair. He was interfacing with a terminal. He tapped the little avatar, which honestly looked nothing like Altair. It was a little man with a bird for a head, slightly resembling a falcon but more human with a moveable mouth. The avatar jumped when he tapped it and wavered. He smiled happily at it. Altair had made the little avatar to send him to tell him to get to a terminal he could actually talk through, unlike his podium. Rauf put his finger on a part of the screen and the avatar ran across the screen and started to jump to try and reach his finger. Rauf just kept smiling and tapped the avatar again, it waved its hands at him.

The fake sun rose and Rauf just sort of made the eagle headed avatar run back and forth across the screen. He looked up when he heard someone approach and saw his students were coming out of the woods. They all looked exhausted with deep circles under their eyes. Rauf brushed the avatar off the screen and stood up properly. "Good job everyone," Rauf told them once they'd all come out of the woods. "Does anyone know the time?" They shook their heads, "Its almost noon. Go get lunch. Class reconvenes at normal afternoon times," and everyone groaned. "Off you go," he waved them away and the class trudged out of the room. They had an hour for lunch and no doubt were going to cram food into their mouths and then take a nap if they could.

Once they were all gone Rauf popped the tablet from the podium and tapped out a code for his personal room, the door locked and the room shifted as he walked towards the center, the woods fading away into a beach that reminded him of the US. He sat on a chair that had been made on the sand and pulled up Altair's avatar from his messages. He grinned at it fondly and double tapped it.

The avatar stopped, looked at him and then opened its mouth. A screen popped up from the mouth. Rauf had to admit it was sort of nice that Altair had let Mira show him how to do this stuff while interfacing. It was cute.

Altair's face appeared on the screen, but not exactly his face. His skin was covered in curved, glowing, lines and his eyes were a uniform gold color. Other than that he looked totally normal. Altair smiled, "Took you long enough," he said.

"I was in class," Rauf said. "You're safe," he said and touched the screen.

"Yeaaaah. In one piece and everything!"

"I heard someone lost some limbs?"

Altair grimaced, "Yeah. Diyari did. Poor kid. He'll be all right though. Once we get him back home they'll give him some killer prosthetics."

"Good. I'm glad you're safe."

"You and me both," Altair huffed, which was funny since Altair's interfacing avatar didn't have to breathe.

"When are you coming home?"

"Soonish. I have some loose ends here to clean up here. Shouldn't be more than another week."

"Like what?"

Altair sighed and couldn't figure out what he wanted to say first. "Well we have a pregnant Assassin with us now. She needs to be stabilized before we can move her- and yeah that was pretty much my expression when I saw her," Altair laughed a little at Rauf and he could only imagine his expression. "Diyari needs to be okay enough to move back to St. Adams and brought out of his coma. And then... I got this kid I need to check on before I can come home."

"Kid?" Rauf asked.

"Yeah," Altair said slowly, "On our mission to retrieve Delta I found this kid... or he found me. He's kinda... attached himself to me."

"Three kids not enough Altair? You need to show Giovanni up with four?"

Altair scowled at him, "He's just a kid."

"I'm just teasing," Rauf said with a grin. "He returning with Alpha and Delta?"

"Probably. The Audi wants him-

"You know he doesn't like it when you call him that," Rauf sighed.

"Yeah? And I care because?"

"He's your Mentor Altair, have a bit of respect," Rauf gave him a look.

"He can bring it up with his brother if he wants. Giovanni did it first," and clearly Altair was an adult because he stuck his tongue out at Rauf, his tongue was neon blue. Rauf tapped it. Because it was touch he could directly influence someone who was interfacing. Altair sucked his tongue back into his mouth, "Ow," he complained.

"You'll live I'm sure," Rauf said.

"It still hurt."

"I'll kiss it better the next time I see you," Rauf said.

Altair was quiet a second, "That won't be the only thing you'll be kissing better," and Rauf flushed. Altar smirked.

"You-

"Meee," Altair grinned when Rauf had no good come back for that.

"Are awful."

"Still love me anyway," Altair was still grinning.

Rauf softened a little and ran his thumb across the cheek of Altair's digital representation. Unlike Rauf Altair, all hooked up and fully interfacing with a terminal, could sort of feel the sensation of it. "Yeah I do," he said, the glowing lines on Altair's face glowed brighter. "Come home soon."

"I will," Altair said, "Promise. As soon as I deal with all this shit me and Alpha and Delta will be on the first heli back to St. Adams."

"Good."

"See you soon," and Rauf tapped Altair's digital lips, though it was with just his finger Altair had told him it sort of felt like a kiss. The lines glowed again a little and the screen closed, going back into the falcon headed man's mouth. The falcon-man waved his stubby arms at Rauf before folding up and vanishing from the page.

Rauf got up, powering down the tablet and pushed it back into the podium. Then he went to go find some lunch, happy to know that his Altair was safe and sound.

\--

Thankfully it wasn't the first time Ezio had ever been in a restaurant, but it was by far the nicest one he'd been in. There weren't a lot of people in the Yukon, and no real cities. Most of the restaurants were small, and made of dark wood with small windows and according to other people were 'homey'. To Ezio they'd always felt claustrophobic and made it hard to breathe. Which was funny to think that Ezio would be claustrophobic since he literally grew up underground. But the fortress was bright and open and the sim rooms never made you feel closed in. The place Leo took him though had big windows in the front next to the sidewalk and they sat next to them. Salai had been left in the car and the dog had curled up in the back and gone to sleep.

"So, Ezio," Leo said as they sat, Ezio put his bag in the chair next to him as Clay and Leo sat across from him, "you're from St. Adams, what's it like there?"

Ezio shrugged, "Eh, you know, boring," and that made Clay laugh.

"It's the capital of the biggest country in the world, I wouldn't think it would be boring," Leo said.

"The Empire is bigger," Ezio said. Short for the Bo Dynastic Empire the country stretched from the old Japanese islands, to the bottom of Asia, over the top of India, took up parts of Russia and touched the edge of Eastern Europe and Iran. The majority language was Korean though the Empire itself was Chinese in origin. It had emerged after the Collapse and gave stability to a war torn Asia. Only Islam had stopped its advance west. The Muslims always were the most stubborn of people.

"It's an empire, not a country," Leo tutted. "Like the NCC."

"I guess. But St. Adams isn't that amazing. Its like Vancouver, but different, I guess," truthfully Ezio didn't know. He'd been in St. Adams once, to catch a bus from it to Lysander near lake Michigan. He wasn't used to the big buildings and skyscrapers. They'd been sort of scary actually.

Their waiter came and they ordered drinks. It was enough to distract from the topic of St. Adams. "What brings you to Vancouver?" Leo asked.

"It isn't hot and it its in California," Ezio smiled. Leo laughed as Clay put his fists under his jaw, watching him with his curious blue eyes.

"So you passing through? Intending to stay? What?"

"Well I just wanna see it. If I like it I might stay. I've heard San Francisco is beautiful too," Ezio had seen pictures of the city and the huge, red, Golden Gates Bridge. It had been destroyed during the war of the Collapse and been rebuilt in an even more spectacular manner.

"It is. Very expensive though. Most expensive city in California. Vancouver's a good fit for kids your age," Leo nodded approvingly, "Any desire to go to L.A.? See the sights?"

Ezio shook his head, "I'm not really one for war memorabilia," Los Angeles had been the sight of one of the largest battles in the old United States and most of it had been leveled. Since then they'd rebuilt and were extremely proud of their heritage of surviving such a battle. Ezio couldn't remember what it used to be but L.A. now  was the sight of the largest collection of war museums and artifacts. He'd seen pictures and taken a digital tour, taken straight from the memories of a Core programmer. It was horrifying to see the sort of weapons humanity had made during the Collapse to exterminate each other. "I'd rather be in a city that's with the times, not stuck in the past."

"Well I assure you, Vancouver is that place," and the waiter came back with their drinks and asked if they were ready to order. "Blast, sorry, I kept you talking so much you didn't even get a chance to look. Give us a minute," the waiter said he would and left them. "Take a look, this is Clay's favorite place," Clay seemed very interested in the menu now.

Ezio looked down and picked up his menu. There was food on here he didn't even knew existed and he wanted to try all of it. He had plenty of money on his allowance card and decided he was allowed to treat himself with whatever he wanted. "So I take it this place is good?"

"It's great," Ezio's eyes flicked up over the top of the menu at Clay. It was the first time he'd heard the kid speak. He seemed shy. Or at the very least wary of strangers. "I make Leo take me whenever I can," he smiled and Ezio found it a bit odd he didn't call Leo dad.

"I'll take your word on it," and Ezio was also thinking ahead. He needed to find an apartment and he should probably just order the next day's worth of meals here. Ezio read the entire menu quickly but didn't miss anything either. He figured out what he wanted now and what he'd want later in the day and tomorrow too. When the waiter came back he ordered without stumbling. "So, we've talked a lot about me," including from old Victoria to Vancouver. "I don't know anything about you though. What do you do?"

"I'm an inventor," Leo said proudly, "and an artist,"

"E você é um procrastinador," Clay said with a grin.

Leo gave him a look, "We'll save that one, Clay," he said. Clay just snickered and sipped his drink.

"What sort of inventor?" Ezio asked.

"Oh this and that. Mainly cutting edge electronics for both the private sector and the government."

"Wow. So you work for a company?"

"Ah... not exactly. I work on commission. So someone asks me to make something that does this and I do it. Same with art. Otherwise I just tinker around with this or that," he shrugged.

"That sounds really cool. Like what's something you invented?"

"Well... a lot of it is small stuff. No one wants to give me time for the larger stuff."

"Like what?" Ezio asked, keenly interested.

"I have this idea for an aircraft engine. All mapped out perfectly but... no one wants it."

"Why?"

"Too expensive and the tech to even build it doesn't exist yet. But it'd allow for small craft to travel at supersonic speeds and yet be extremely quiet and light. I tried selling the design to the California military but they're not interested in making small craft and the design isn't easy to expand upon and make for larger aircraft. And of course there isn't a country in the world who doesn't want to look like they have the biggest dick with a big navy or big air force all full of the biggest and best craft. No room for small, light, craft. They want to be real men with big fully functioning dicks and-

"Leo," Clay said mildly and Leo came to an abrupt halt.

"Ah- forgive me. I started rambling. I'm sure you don't care about the poli-economics of inventing."

"No no, I think its very interesting," Ezio said seriously. "I've never met an inventor and its interesting to hear another take on military action. I'm from a family of soldiers," well that wasn't a lie he could fake even if he wanted to. Ezio acted like he was in the military, perfectly made bed every morning, all his clothes were clean and folded and he was ridiculously organized, which he knew was rare for someone his age. Most children were so babied by their parents at his age that they... just didn't know what to do.

"Oh... well, I don't want to make it sound like I'm some peace loving hipster," Leo said, head bowed a little. Ezio laughed. He didn't know what a hipster was but he was pretty sure Leo wasn't one of them.

Ezio hesitated a moment before saying, "I don't know how patriotic you are-

"Not particularly no. Don't get me wrong I love Vancouver and California but they're very... ostentatious.."

"I could talk to my dad. He's kinda high up in the FRN military. They might be interested in your engine design," from what he'd just heard the Assassins would be very interested in purchasing such a blueprint and would invest in the technology to make it happen. A heli that could move at supersonic speeds and was light and quiet? He had to assume it was also low heat emission. It would make their helis better than they already were. Along with simply being on their pilgrimage cadets were tasked with keeping an eye open for valuable assets that could help the Order. Ezio had struck gold with Leo and he knew it. A horrible, mean, and trained part of him said to become his friend so he could continue to help the Order.

Leo's mouth popped open and Clay looked at Leo expectantly. "R-really?" he asked and looked like he was about to jump out of his seat and hug Ezio.

"Sure," and he wondered what he'd just done. "I mean if your engine is as great as you say it is California must be stupid to not want it," and the unspoken bit was that if they didn't want it the FRN would take it. Of course the FRN was really the Assassins, but Leo wouldn't know that. Better if he didn't honestly.

Leo slumped in his chair and looked suddenly so relieved. Then he leaned over and wrapped his arm around his son's shoulders. "You were right," he said lowly to Clay and the kid grinned brightly.

Their food arrived then and Ezio realized how big his meal was compared to Leo and Clay's. Leo didn't seem to notice but it was then that Ezio noticed how hungry Clay looked. Like honestly hungry like he hadn't eaten in a few days. Ezio didn't ask about it though and when Leo opened his mouth again it was to talk about other things, like where Ezio was staying or for how long. Ezio just ate and answered Leo's questions but didn't miss how Clay eyed his plate after he'd finished his own food. It almost made Ezio give him his but he didn't. He didn't know if it was okay. So he just tried not to see.

 


	11. It's all Not Broken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It still always surprises me that people like my OCs, especially two in particular. I think you all just like tragic lovers. Well... so do i. So I did a thing.
> 
> The Ezio bit of this chapter are brought to you by [hirarandom](http://hirarandom.tumblr.com/) who paid for them (she paid for a lot more, but they'll come up later in the story). You can find out about commissions [here](http://nottheshepardyourelookingfor.tumblr.com/comm)

Except to go on the mission to find Desmond Jari had barely left the medical ward. Diyari was still asleep though recovering fast. Between some of the best medical service in the world and their natural rapid healing Diyari was coming along just fine. But he still hadn’t woken up. The doctors had assured Jari that when his body could fight off the antibodies they’d given him to put him in a coma he’d be fit enough to be taken home. Jari spent most of his days sitting beside Diyari’s bed, reading or playing a game on a tablet. Sometimes he read out loud.

It had been nearly five days now since they’d rescued Altair, Haytham, and Diyari from the Temple in Utah. While improving Diyari still hadn’t woken. Altair was getting anxious to leave. So was the rest of Alpha. But they wouldn’t leave until Diyari was awake. When Alpha went out together they didn’t go home until everyone could go home, even if that meant them air lifting their dead body back to the fortress. Jari knew that between his medic, Kappa six and Desmond Altair was under a bunch of pressures to get everyone back to the fortress safely.

Jari just wanted Diyari to wake up.

Not for the first time he fell asleep by Diyari’s bed. Usually someone came and found him before it got too early and helped him back to his bunk when he did that. He just wanted to be there when Diyari woke up. He’d fallen asleep with his head pillowed on the side of the bed. He was exhausted from waiting and worrying. Jari dreamed in echoes, each perfect reberation shimmering to create a perfect picture. He jerked and grumbled when something touched his head but he was already asleep again, sure he’d imagined it.

A few more minutes of sleeping later Jari tugged his eyes open because something was still touching him. He blinked blearily at the sleeping Diyari only to find… he wasn’t sleeping. Diyari was awake and absently petting Jari’s hair while he slept.

Jari was awake in an instant. “You’re awake!” he cried and hugged Diyari, being mindful not to hug too tightly. “Oh thank the god, you’re awake,” he buried his face in Diyari’s shoulder. Then he let Diyari go to cup his face in his hands and stroked his cheeks. Oh how he’d missed Diyari’s gorgeous hazel eyes.

"I am," Diyari said, sounding tired, "you’re a sight for sore eyes," and then Jari kissed him, right on the lips. The kiss was absolutely electric. He could feel their resonance through his entire body when they touched. It was a soaring song through his bones the two melodies blending harmoniously against each other like a perfectly tuned instrument. He’d never met anyone he had such a perfect resonance with before Diyari. He was Jari’s only. If anything happened to him Jari wouldn’t know what he’d do with himself. "And sore mouths," Diyari sighed happily.

"How do you feel?" Jari asked him, stroking his head and face and running his hand over Diyari’s curly hair.

"Like crap," Diyari groaned. "Tired, and sore, and hungry. How long have I been asleep?"

"Five days," Jari was sitting on the edge of Diyari’s bed, one hand holding Diyari’s remaining one, gently stroking the top of his knuckles.

"F-five days— How do I pee?" Jari glanced down and tugged at the sheet so he could see the catheter. "Wonderful," Diyari sighed. Then, for the first time he looked at his right side and visibly took himself a back and looked away, pushing his face into his shoulder.

"It isn’t that bad," Jari said, trying to be optimistic.

"I don’t have a lower arm," Diyari choked out.

Jari made Diyari look at him, “Then we’ll get you a new one,” he promised. “Altair said the Audi said that once you get back to the fortress they’ll fit you with a new one.”

Diyari didn’t look convinced. In fact he still looked miserable. “So I’m going to be one of those fucking cyborgs then?” he asked, his voice shaking a little.

"Nothing wrong with cyborgs," Jari said, "we can get yellow racing stripes on your new arm and foot even."

Diyari actually barked out a laugh at that. “I want to stand up,” he groaned. “I want to get out of this bed. Everything aches.”

Jari didn’t say he couldn’t. He pulled the sheet back and helped Diyari to sit up and then sideways on the bed. Diyari looked down at his legs, and his foot. His one foot. Like his elbow his ankle was wrapped in blue bandage. Under that was a cream to keep it clean and promote healthy new skin to grow over the destroyed limb. “You’ll be okay,” Jari said gently, sitting next to him.

"I’m a cripple," Diyari said, staring at his foot.

"I’ll be with you the entire time," Jari said, taking Diyari’s hand to squeeze again. "Still want to stand up?"

"Yes," Diyari said.

Jari slid off the bed and carefully helped him up. Diyari’s leg was weak for not using it nearly a weak and Jari caught him when he sagged. “There we go,” Jari put Diyari’s remaining arm around his shoulders. “Can you hop?”

"I think so," and he did so experimentally. With Jari helping to hold him up he did it. Jari helped Diyari hop to the door and then back. The hurt man was exhausted when they returned to the bed. "I’d really like to be able to piss on my own. And I reak," Diyari made a face as he sat on the bed, only looking at Jari’s face as he spoke, and nowhere else and definitely not his missing limbs.

"I don’t know if I can help with the pissing part, but I can call one of the docs and-

"No," Diyari grabbed his arm when he went to call them. "I don’t want to be fussed over. I can live with it till the morning. Or I could do it myself-

"You are not," Jari told him sternly.

"Bath then? Can I have a bath? I feel really funky," Jari asked hopefully.

Jari eyed him, “I think that would be okay,” and he got up, “put a clamp on the tube,” and he went into the bathroom in the ward and ran the water. Once it was at an acceptable temperature he plugged it and went out to Diyari who was sagging a little, tired. When Jari came back out he perked up. “You good for some hopping? Or you want me to carry you?” he teased.

"I can hop," Diyari insisted. Jari helped him up again and to the bathroom. Diyari sat on the toilet lid while Jari topped off the bath and Diyari undid his ugly robe. Five hundred years and the robes they made you wear in the hospital were the same, small, open backed, and unflattering. Jari had seen pictures from some of Diyari’s collection of historic medical photos. He didn’t understand that after so many centuries of advances in medicine that the hospital gown was still basically the same. Jari went back over to Diyari and without asking just picked him up with a grunt. "Jari!" Diyari complained.

"Shush. It’s easier this way and I don’t have to worry about you falling," he said as he crouched next to the tub and laid him in it. The bandages swelled to several times their normal size in the water and when they turned white they would be safe to take off without pulling on the damaged skin too badly. He stroked Diyari’s face gently, "You’re hurt enough. I don’t think I could take it if I somehow was the cause of why you were hurt again"

"You’re sweet," Diyari said.

Jari smiled and got up to find the soap. He found that. But he also found a toothbrush. He put some paste on it. “Here,” he handed it to Diyari. “Besides the fact that I’m sure you want to clean your mouth out it is taking way more willpower than I have any right to have to not kiss you right now-

"But I have icky five day breath?" Diyari asked.

"You’re cute, but not that cute," and he was glad when he got Diyari to laugh a little. Once Diyari had brushed his teeth and rinsed Jari handed him the bar of soap.

From outside the door opened, there was a moment of silence, “Seven? Eleven?” Munahid called.

"In the bathroom," Jari called back. A moment later their second in command was in the doorway.

"He’s awake? Glad to see you up Diyari," Munahid said.

"Thank you, sir," Diyari said.

"I’ll tell Altair. Jari, a moment," and he jerked his head out the door. Jari nodded and stood, following Munahid outside. Munahid closed the door behind them.

"What is it?" Jari asked.

"How is he?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, confused.

"Tell me what I need to tell Altair about his condition," Munahid said and it was like Munahid had literally just dropped a grenade in his lap. With it he could do whatever he wanted. He could tell Munahid Diyari was fine and once he was recovered could continue service, or he could tell Munahid that he wasn’t and shouldn’t be sent on more missions even when he got his prosthetics. It was a surprisingly hard choice. He would give everything so that Diyari was never hurt this badly again. But if it ever came out that Jari had sabotaged his career in Alpha for his own peace of mind he doubted Diyari would ever forgive him. But it’d just be between him and Munahid. His commander knew what he was doing, what he’d asked.

He weighed the options carefully, feeling how much each one weighed on his heart. He could make sure Diyari was safe in the fortress with this, that their baby would always have a father. But if Diyari ever found out… Or he could let Diyari continue to do what he loved to do, what he’d wanted to do since he’d come home from his pilgrimage and be a medic on a field team.

If he was kicked off Alpha Jari knew Diyari would suffer. When you were in Alpha it was your everything. It was your family. Hell, he and Diyari had met because of Alpha. Alpha was your mother and father, your sisters and brothers. But to keep Diyari safe, after he’d lost so much?

They’d been joined this season. If Diyari was relieved of service surely the arrival of their baby would help with his depression if he was relieved? He’d still get to work as a doctor, probably even a better one with a mechanical arm, since he’d always have a steady hand. Diyari had been the one who’d petitioned so hard to be joined this season. If Diyari had to stay in the fortress, away from the field then if something happened to Jari at least he’d have their baby.

The consequences of either action weighed heavy on his heart.

Jari just wanted Diyari to be happy. It was all he ever wanted. He couldn’t do this to him.

"He’s fine," Jari said without emotion or expression. Diyari would never forgive him if he acted so selfishly. Jari didn’t know if he’d have ever forgiven himself either. "Tell Altair he’s fine."

Munahid rubbed his mouth with a sigh and looked away. He knew what he was asking of Jari. “You’re sure?” he asked.

"Yes," Jari nodded.

"All right," Munaid nodded and dropped his hand. "I’ll tell Altair we can return home tomorrow if twelve is ready for transport." Jari nodded stiffly.

"Six," Jari called when Munahid got to the door.

"Hmm?" Munahid turned to Jari, brows up, hand on the knob.

"Thanks," he said softly.

Munahid grinned a little, “Think nothing of it,” and then he left.

Jari stood there for a few seconds later before going back into the bathroom.

Diyari was sitting in the tub still, not like he could stand to get out, his right arm forward and was looking at the end of his arm where it had been sawed off at the elbow. It hadn’t been cut that high by the Mormons, but they’d done a shitty job at it. Both the amputations had been messy and they’d shattered most of the bone, sending splinters into the flesh that had led to a small infection. The Assassins doctors had shaved off the ends of the limbs to save them. As Jari closed the door Diyari reached over and gently grabbed his sawed off elbow.

"You clean up" Jari asked. Slowly, head down, Diyari shook his head. Jari frowned and went over to the side and knelt. Diyari was trembling. "Hey," he said but Diyari didn’t move, "D," he tried and leaned over the edge of the tub.

"I’m broken," Diyari whimpered.

Jari blinked, stunned by what he’d just said. “What? No you aren’t,” Jari told him.

"Yes I am. I can feel my fingers but they aren’t there. They aren’t there," he looked at Jari and his eyes were wet.

"You aren’t broken," Jari told him firmly. "Well… maybe a little. But we’ll fix you up."

"And what?" Diyari demanded, "I’m gonna be a freak. A cyborg. No one even likes cyborgs. Who’s going to want me-

"I do," Jari said, hurt, sitting on his knees. "Altair isn’t going to send you away Diyari," he said gently. "Were you worried?" Judging by his tears, yes, he had been.

"Alpha can’t be weak," Diyari croaked.

"You aren’t weak," Jari told him.

"No… I’ll just be a liability," normally cyborgs weren’t allowed in the field. Cybernetics was not a new field of medicine, but they were still glitchy sometimes. They could be hacked if you were good at it or could be crippled by an EMP. They were a liability. Everyone knew it. "I’m useless now," and tears finally fell from his eyes.

"No you’re not," Jari insisted. "Altair still wants you. Alpha still wants you. I still want you," he cupped Diyari’s face in his hands. "You’re not broken, D," he promised. Diyari closed his eyes like he could block Jari out. "Altair promised me that once you got your cybernetics and were used to them you could go back on the field," Altair had done nothing of the sort, but Diyari didn’t know that. He didn’t need to. Unless Altair said otherwise he never would.

Altair cared about his squad and he knew what it meant to be on Alpha, and what it meant to be taken away. For them, without Alpha, they were nothing. Jari had seen old Alpha squad members, when Giovanni Auditore had been Alpha-one. They did what they had to do, but clearly it was joyless. Their love was their squad and without it life lost some meaning. Jari was glad he’d told Munahid Diyari was fine. He wouldn’t have been able to bear having to watch Diyari suffer through being told that he wasn’t fit enough to return to the field.

"But-

"No buts," Jari pressed his forehead against Diyari’s, his hand on the back of Diyari’s neck. "Alpha isn’t getting rid of you. We still need our medic. Okay?" he kneaded the back of Diyari’s neck. Diyari sniffed and nodded. "Good," he leaned back, "Now no more of this broken stuff. Please. You’re not broken," he wiped the wet off Diyari’s cheeks with the back of his hand. "And even if you were you’d still have me."

"Yeah?" Diyari croaked.

"You always have me," Jari promised and kissed him lightly. "And soon we’ll be dads," he added. Diyari sniffed again and nodded with a little smile. "We’re okay?"

"Yeah," Diyari nodded again and wiped his nose. "I’m okay," he said.

"Good. Now lets get you cleaned up and back into bed. Munahid said we were leaving tomorrow," and Jari groped around in the tub for the bar of soap. "And then we can think about those racing stripes," he grinned at Diyari and Diyari was helpless to the little bubble of laughter that erupted out of him. Jari smiled. They’d be okay.

—

Altair was standing in a room, alone with a beeping monitor, and a plastic tent circling a medical gurney. Desmond was laying on the bed, tube down his throat, his chest rising and falling slowly but evenly. Altair was leaning against the door, watching him sleep. He’d been like that since Altair had brought him in. His heart beat was back up but his breathing was still slow. The tube down his throat was for breathing and eating.

No one knew what was wrong with him. Except of course that he was rapidly getting better. All Assassins had a robust immune system and the same whatever it was that gave them the Eagle Vision also made them heal faster than normal. Not much, but it helped. Desmond healed rapidly though, five times faster than a normal human. The broken bone was already partially healed. No one knew how, or why.

Altair went over to the plastic tent. They didn’t know what was wrong with him and tests on his saliva were inconclusive. He was clean on everything. But seemed too clean. The tent was for everyone’s protection, including Desmond’s. Desmond looked pale under the white sheet and it made Altair’s mouth tight. He’d hoped they could leave by now. But Desmond and Diyari had to wake up first. Or at least be able to be moved. Diyari could be woken at any time. Desmond though. They didn’t even know what was wrong, much less know how to fix him.

Behind him there was a knock on the door. “Yeah?” he called.

It opened softly and Altair knew the sound of Munahid’s footsteps anywhere. “Diyari’s up, sir,” Munahid said. Everyone walked around on glass with Altair, especially when it came to Desmond. Altair hated that he was attached, but he was. The kid… well, he reminded Altair of himself in a way. He was a mystery and seemed to have the answer to everyone’s questions.

Altair looked over his shoulder at Munahid. His second was standing at an anxious half attention, “Good. And?”

Munahid’s mouth went thin a moment. “Jari said he’s fine, sir,” Munahid said.

Altair turned back to sleeping Desmond, “He lost an arm Munahid. One thing Diyari isn’t is fine. He’s going to need cybernetics.”

"You going to retire him, sir?"

Altair mulled it over. “We’ll see. I know how much Alpha means to the kid. If he can handle it I won’t. Regardless, I’m going to need a replacement medic while he’s out of commission.”

"Sir."

"Now this baby has to wake up, and we can go home," he sighed, "Ready to go home Muna?"

"Yes, sir. I want to sleep in my own bed."

"Me too. And see my kids, and Rauf."

"The Audi still wants a meeting, sir."

"The Audi can suck my dick is what the Audi can do," Altair said, agitated. "You can tell him again that I won’t talk to him till we’re home."

"Should I include the first bit, sir?" Munahid asked.

Altair laughed, it wasn’t a nice laugh and he knew it. He could feel Munahid shift anxiously behind him. “No,” he shook his head slowly, amused. “No don’t tell him that.”

"Yes, sir."

"Is that all, Muna?" Altair asked.

"Yes, sir. That’s all."

"Then dismissed."

"Sir," and Munahid left.

Altair shifted his stance and folded his arms, looking down at Desmond. “C’mon kid, wake up,” he growled. “I wanna see my kids.” Desmond didn’t move. Didn’t even appear to have heard. Altair frowned angrily at him, like the boy was doing it on purpose to piss him off. “I bet there’s nothing even wrong with you,” he said irritably. “You just like to make me worry. Just like Darim. Always doing something stupid to make me worry,” like cutting classes or pulling stupid stunts during training. Darim had already been sent to the fortress hospital three times for minor broken bones. “Just wake the hell up,” he said softly, and wishing he didn’t sound so concerned.

—

Ezio sat in a cyber cafe with a data cube in front of one of the society terminals that were free to use as long as you bought something from their cafe every now and then to make up for using their wi-fi. Ezio didn’t have a personal tablet yet so he was stuck at a terminal. He put the data cube against the flat port of the terminal tower and the terminal beeped, showing it was able to access the data. Leo had loaned him the data cube full of files. He said half the data was on the cube, and if the FRN was interested in the design once he got paid they’d get the other half, which Ezio felt was fair.

The terminal was frustrating to navigate. Everything in the fortress was operated through touch or holographic displays you could fully interact with. Sure there were screens on their terminals but at the very least they were touch. Society seemed to be at least two decades behind the Order and you still had to manually navigate the untouchable screen with a floating, spherical, controller. It took Ezio more time than it should have to navigate to find the portal to the web and open it. At least the rest was rather easy and familiar.

He brought up the host for the cover bank of the Order and found the way to contact the chairman; Giovanni Auditore, Ezio’s father. It brought up an email display and Ezio typed ‘Investment Opportunity’ into the title and the entirety of the message was ‘CAD-093, asset found’. He then attached the entire contents of the data cube to the email. There was a message in there from Leo explaining both the engine and the deal if they agreed to it.

Once it was sent he picked up the data cube, closed off the portal and left the cyber cafe. He headed straight for a grocery store where he pretty much filled a cart with food that looked good. It had been a few days since he’d arrived in Vancouver and met Leo and Clay. He had a place to live and was now looking for a job, but he’d seen where Clay and Leo lived. It had made him upset.

A cab took him and all his food home. He lugged it all downstairs to the basement apartment he was renting and then separated it out. He put away most of it, putting like things together. He’d already formed a plan for at least the next year. He was going to stay in Vancouver and make friends with Leo and his kid and their dog and start feeding any good inventions Leo came up with to the Order. It was a horribly self serving plan that benefitted him and his people. But Ezio knew what had to be done, and he’d do it too. It didn’t mean he couldn’t become real friends with Leo along the way of course. Just… at the start he knew why he was doing it. Better than pretending  he was doing it for any other reason than to benefit the Order.

When all his groceries were put away he consolidated all the other groceries and took them back upstairs to the street. He hailed another cab to take him to Leo’s place.

Leo and Clay lived in a huge high rise block. It took up several acres of space and while not the tallest building in the city it was really big. It held apartments, a medical center, a few shops, and a small police department. Leo said it was called Blue Rose block and functioned as an entire neighborhood inside one massive building. It was a far cry from the little apartment Ezio had which was in the basement of a house in the suburbs of Vancouver. Ezio carried all the groceries into Blue Rose and took an elevator up to the fifteenth floor.

Three kids rushed into the elevator and he had to side step around them, looking back at them to make sure they hadn’t stolen anything. Seeing they hadn’t he continued down the hall and took a few turns to get to Leo’s place. His hands were sore as he put all the bags down and knocked. From inside Salai started barking. Clay answered the door, opening it just a little to peer out before opening it the rest of the way. “Ezio,” he said, confused why Ezio was there clearly.

"Help me with these," Ezio said and picked up most of the bags again and walked in. Clay frowned after him but picked up the last three bags and closed the door. Ezio put the bags on the counter.

He hadn’t been imagining it when he thought Clay had looked hungry. Blue Rose block was for low income families and people with next to nothing. The first time Ezio had visited he’d been shocked by it since Leo had made it sound like he made a decent living. Apparently it was hard for one man to sell inventions when California had so many high tech corporations churning out stuff on the government’s dime. He didn’t make a lot of money and was well under the poverty line and was on government subsidies, but that wasn’t very much, even though he had a kid and a dog. As such they apparently had enough food for three meals a day for half of the month, and the other half they had to ration it off. Clay looked hungry because he was hungry. Ezio couldn’t even imagine what that was like. Growing up he’d never had to think about where his next meal would be from or if he’d get enough to eat. The Order always had enough.

"What is all this?" Clay asked, staring with longing as Ezio started to unpack the groceries.

"What’s it look like? It’s food!" Ezio grinned at Clay and pulled out a box of sugary gummies. Clay looked like he wanted some of them really badly but clearly knew better than to ask for any. Still smiling Ezio opened the box and tossed Clay one of the individual bags.

"You bought us food?" Clay asked, staring at Ezio in confusion.

"Yeap," Ezio said and opened the fridge which had a few sad looking vegetables in it, a block of cheese and some cold cut but they didn’t even have bread for sandwiches. He put mayonnaise and ketchup and milk into the fridge door and apples and grapes onto a shelf. He pulled out a loaf of bread and put it on the counter. "You going to eat it or stare at me?" Ezio asked. Clay then seemed to remember he had something in his hands and tore it open. He looked like he wanted to just eat them all in one go but settled for eating them one at a time.

Ezio was still putting food away when Leo came out, “Clay what’s all that racket I’m trying to work-” he trailed off when he saw Ezio putting some chicken in his freezer. Ezio froze though he’d been ready for this too. “Ezio? What… are you…?” he sounded very confused.

"Ezio bought food!" Clay said excitedly.

"What? Why?" Leo asked, still confused.

"Because you’re my friend," Ezio said, "and I didn’t want to see Clay look hungry," now that he knew them a little better Ezio could see how thin Leo was. Clearly he let Clay eat most of the food.

"Ezio you didn’t have to-

"Its fine," Ezio finally closed the freezer, "I have enough money to be generous until my dad gets back to me with the good news."

After a second a tear rolled down Leo’s face and he hastily scrubbed it away with his palm. “You didn’t have to,” Leo said, voice thick and cracked a little.

"I know," Ezio said, "but I wanted to. I even," he turned to the bags and pulled out a brightly colored, resealable bag with a very happy looking dog on it, bouncing up and down. When Ezio opened it Salai nearly shoved him to the ground. As it was the mutt put his front paws up on Ezio’s chest.

"Ah! Salai! Bad dog, get off him," Leo scolded. Ezio just laughed a little and let Salai lick the dog treats out of his hand. He tossed one away from him and Salai scrambled away to lap it up eagerly. "Ezio… this is too much," Leo tried to insist.

"Nonsense. Its fine. I wanted to help you since if my dad’s boss says yes to wanting to buy your engine you’ll be helping me."

"Yeah but-

"You can buy my lunch next time, and I won’t hear another word about it," Ezio shook the bag of dog treats at him.

Leo looked at Ezio helplessly and then looked at Clay, Clay looked like his face was going to start hurting from smiling so much. “Okay,” Leo said, sounding like he was at a loss, but happy all the same and finally smiled along with Ezio and Clay.

—

From the top of the tower there was a magnificent view of Paris. Haytham could very well get used to this. So much better than Britain which could be so dreary and dismal and rainy. France was a small country, but influential thanks to its history. The site of many grand battles during the Collapse most of Europe was still mostly empty, as empty as America or Asia really. Like the other continents there were pockets of population, nothing like the world had been before the Collapse though. Paris was an epicenter that perhaps only San Francisco, Shanghai, or Miami could rival. The largest city in Europe it was one of the last truly old cities that still meant anything. London had been destroyed, as had Rome, Berlin, New York, Tokyo, Baghdad, and Beijing. All gone. Gone to shit during the Collapse, burned to crisps from warheads during the chaos. Some of the cities, like  and Madrid, Naples, Los Angeles, and Berlin hung on, but their grip was tenuous. Haytham had not been in a big city like this since he was a boy. Since his father-

He waved his hand, as if he could physically dispel the ghosts that at times plagued him. It was the past and all it could do was bother him. He had much greater things to worry about than his father; dead. Or his mother; also dead. Or his sister; gone, might as well have been dead, he’d never been able to find her even though he’d looked for years.

Haytham focused back on Paris, and how glad he was to be here. The Templars had inhabited France for a very long time, more than two thousand years ago. They’d had such humble beginnings for the largest organization in the world. Right in Jerusalem no less. But that was a long time ago. Things were different now. Now they were more than just the Templars. Now they were Abstergo. He tapped his thumb on the arm of his chair thinking about it. The world was quite literally his oyster. He might not run Abstergo, he left that to the board and to Stearns. No Haytham made sure that their agents on the field did their jobs. He controlled the strong arm of the corporation. He also knew many things the board- the ‘Inner Circle’ as they liked to call themselves like they were still in the middle ages- did not, and liked to keep it that way. Things like Marcusville.

There was a knock on his door. He turned away from the Paris skyline, so different now than old pictures, and stood with his hands behind his back. “Yes?” he called.

The door was eased open and two men entered, one leading a young girl along by the hand. Haytham recognized them both, which was surprising since they both worked in the science division. One was William Johnson, an old friend and a surprisingly kind soul and who spoke with a strong accent. The other was Warren Vidic, who looked a bit like a wizard from old stories with his white beard and hair and cunning, intelligent, eyes. Warren was the one who held the girl’s hand, though she was standing behind them, looking shy.

"What is it?" he asked.

"You received the report about your field unit yesterday, did you not?" William asked.

"I did," Haytham agreed, taking his hands from behind his back and putting them into his suit pants pockets. "It was a successful raid on some rats if I remember correctly. All dead."

"Yes," William nodded, "You did read the entire thing didn’t you?"

"Most of it," Haytham said, though he’d only read up to the point of knowing it was a successful mission. The rest was rather trivial. If there was more he needed to know it would come up.

"They found something with the Assassins," William said.

"Oh? I don’t recall what it was, remind me," Haytham waved his hand in a forthcoming motion at the two men.

"Her," Warren was the one who spoke up this time and gently prodded the girl forward, though kept a hold of her hand.

"Her?" Haytham looked at the girl. She was barely more than a child with big blue eyes and shortly cropped blonde hair like a boy. A slight ache came to Haytham’s chest, though he wasn’t sure why.

"Her name is Lucy," Warren said, "she’s eleven."

"And why do I care?" Haytham asked, giving Warren a look.

"She isn’t an Assassin," William supplied quickly. "In fact, she had no relation to any of them. She was just in their company."

"Again, why do I care other than why she isn’t dead?" Lucy whimpered at that and shied away into Warren.

"Show him," Warren said, surprisingly gentle with the little girl.

"Show me what, what is going on here-" Haytham’s mouth snapped shut when the girl’s eyes turned golden. Under other circumstances that was normal. All Assassins could do that. But one so young? It was supposed to be rare. "She isn’t an Assassin?" he clarified with William.

"No, sir," William shook his head. "We asked her. She said that she didn’t know any of them for more than a few days when they found her near Lascaux. We tried to run some tests on her… but, well sir we can’t."

"Why not?" Haytham rose his brow at William.

"Her skin is too hard. We tried reinforced needles, everything we use to pierce Assassins skin. Nothing worked. She has skin like diamonds. She seems healthy though and she informed us she’s not carrying any diseases."

“I ran a brain scan on her,” Warren added, “She’s got… very strange brain waves. I’m not sure why though. We’ll need to run more tests to figure it out. If there even is a reason.”

Haytham went over to them slowly, “Who else knows about the existence of this girl?” he asked.

"Us, my assistant, and the men on the strike force," William said.

Haytham crouched in front of Lucy, she peered at him from where she was hiding behind Warren. He smiled at her. “Don’t worry,” he told her, “I don’t bite. I’m like you, see,” and he went into the first EV as easily as breathing.

"No you aren’t," she said quietly.

"I’m not?" Haytham asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"You’re just not," she said, shaking her head slowly.

"Hmmm," he looked up at the adults. "Make sure no one speaks of this. If they do I will have their tongues," he looked back at Lucy, who was staring at him with golden eyes now, still wary, but less so. "In fact, tell them that if they tell anyone, including the board, about her, that I will kill them," he couldn’t let her existence reach the board. Not yet.

"Yes, sir," William nodded.

"Good," Haytham smiled at her again, "Are you scared of me?" he asked her.

"A little," she said, "I’ve been looking for you."

"Really now?" he asked her.

"Yes," she licked her lips. "You’ll help me."

Haytham’s brows arched, “Oh really? With what?” he’d prefer to have this conversation without Warren or William there but she seemed to have attached herself to Warren, so there was nothing he could do about that.

"You’ll help me find him," she said, looking at him with her golden eyes intently.

Haytham’s lips pulled back into a broad smile. It seemed he didn’t have to hear nothing but bad news today. “Yes,” he nodded, “I will.”


	12. Wicked Streak

Altair was dozing, his eyes closed after a long day of doing nothing. ‘Nothing’ for someone like Alpha-one included training with his squad and going over tactics with all the young members; which was to say all of them. He’d dropped himself off in the room Desmond was in, still waiting for him to wake up, and was half asleep next to the plastic tent.

He was roused by the sounds of choking and struggling, quickly followed by a few choked sobs. Altair’s eyes snapped open and he saw that Desmond was awake and had one hand on his mouth, trying to pull out the feeding tube but choking himself doing so. Altair jumped to his feet and pushed his way into the tent, Desmond was flailing now.

Altair put his hands on both of Desmond’s shoulders and pushed him down, his arms away, “Relax,” he said sternly. Desmond’s eyes were wet from struggling, “the tubes are there to help you, not kill you. Now just breathe normally,” Desmond breathed and everything worked the way it was supposed to. “Good,” Altair said soothingly. He reached over to take hold of the feeding tube. “If you want, hold your breath, and on three I’m going to pull it out,” Desmond nodded, totally trusting Altair to do what was needed. “One. Two. Three,” and he pulled.

Desmond coughed once the tube was out of his throat. Altair patted his back and Desmond gasped to get air in his lungs and remind himself how breathing on his own worked. Then he looked at Altair and to Altair’s surprise and shock, burst into tears. He had no idea wha triggered it but Desmond was only eleven. Maybe the tears had something to do with that fact, and that he’d just gone through a traumatic experience and just woken up from a coma. It seemed pretty reasonable to Altair.

Thankfully Altair was no stranger to comforting little boys. He moved to sit next to Desmond and basically pulled him into his lap. Desmond curled up against him, crying out his stress and panic and whatever else he was feeling. Altair just gently rubbed his back with one arm while the one held him to his chest, now and then he’d gently shush him. But there was no rush for it.

Desmond quieted eventually, his spontaneous tears run dry. “How do you feel?” Altair asked gently, still rubbing his back.

"My arm hurts," Desmond sniffed and wiped his nose on his hospital gown. Desmond’s arm was encased in a web-like exocast that was went down to his wrist and up to his elbow, but did not hinder the use of his hand.

"You broke it," Altair said. "What do you remember?" Desmond just whined and shook his head into Altair’s chest. "Now are you going to listen to me when I say you can’t go out?" Altair asked. After a moment Desmond nodded against Altair’s shirt. "Good," and that was when a nurse came in.

"You shouldn’t be in there without a mask," she said upon seeing Altair.

"He isn’t sick, he’s got a broken arm you idiot," Altair shot back. Frankly he’d thought the plastic tent was a bit much everything considered.

The nurse made a face, “We don’t know he’s not sick. Come out of there.”

"No," Desmond whined when Altair tried to get up, "I don’t want you to go," he looked up at Altair with big, pleading, eyes.

"Soldier. Come out of the tent," the nurse said.

That ticked Altair off though. He was Alpha-fucking-one, some shitty nurse didn’t tell him what to do. “Do you know who I am doc?” he asked, that instantly made them uneasy. “Do you have any idea who you’re trying to boss around?”

"Uh…"

"I am Alpha-one and there isn’t a single person in this backwater bureau that outranks me. So you do not get to tell the likes of me what to do. Got it?" he growled, "Come take out his catheter. He’s fine, and we’re going home."

"S-sir I must insist-

"You’re only doing what I tell you to do. The boys back home, with better equipment, can run their bull shit tests. Now get over here and take it out," the nurse looked a second away from refusing before going over to Desmond. The boy shied away, especially when the nurse pulled back the sheets and put her hands under the gown. Altair held Desmond still, he’d never had a catheter but he’d been told it hurt when it was removed. Desmond cried out when it was and he whimpered against Altair. "Now get the hell out of here," he told the nurse. The nurse scowled at him but left anyway.

"That really hurt," Desmond whined.

"That’s what happens when you do stupid shit," Altair knocked Desmond’s head lightly. "Now you’re washing up and we’re leaving," he said and helped Desmond off the bed. Desmond was a little weak but he hung on to Altair’s arm and could walk on his own. "Do you need help?" Altair asked when they got to the bathroom.

"No," Desmond said stubbornly and let go of Desmond. He walked slightly stiff legged into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

"I’ll have clothes put on the chair," Altair called through the door. Desmond called back an affirmative and then Altair left. He found another nurse, different nurse, and told him about Desmond needed clothes. This nurse was clearly one of them from the fortress and not someone they’d taken in, because they went and obeyed without questioning.

Altair found most of his squad in the mess hall, eating dinner. Maelin was also with them. She’d put on a significant amount of weight in the past week, healthy weight, and seemed quite fond of Munahid. The problem lay in that Munahid couldn’t speak Korean, and Maelin couldn’t speak English; but they could both speak German, which Altair thought was funny. Ziio and Kanwai also sat together, heads bowed into each other, talking and eating at the same time. Altair liked that his squad was so accepting of their little Alpha-Beta. Kanwai was so far the only one who’d made real friends. The rest of Alpha would follow if Ziio became Alpha. The only ones who weren’t there were Jari, Diyari, and Ehan.

"Where’s Ehan?" he asked, coming up to his squad, putting his hands on Chris and Munahid’s shoulders. He knew where Jari and Diyari were.

"Still in the gym," Chris said.

"Someone go get him. Cause everyone needs to eat and then get their gear together; we’re leaving."

"We’re leaving?" Mira asked.

"Desmond woke up; we’re going home," Altair said and there were some happy whoops from the table. "Now, someone go get Ehan and tell him to get his ass up to mess and eat," Haytham excused himself and went off to find their bruiser of an Alpha-five.

"Going to join us?" Munahid asked Altair.

"In a few, I’ll be back," and he left them and went up three flights to the bureau leader’s office. He knocked and was let in. "Sir," he said when he came in.

"Alpha-one," he said from his desk, flicking through a tablet. He set it down. "What is it?"

"Me and my squad are ready to go home. All members are awake and able bodied for transport. If you’d call us in a heli from Texas we’ll be on our way as soon as possible."

The bureau leader looked him over, “I’m half of mind to make you stay. I mean, I actually get shit done with Alpha and Delta around,” Altair laughed. “A heli will be called in from Texas, you and your men deserve a break, Alpha-one.”

"Thank you, sir," Altair saluted him and then left the office. He went back down to Desmond’s room and found the kid scrubbed clean and in clothes that were just miniature’s of Altair’s. White shirt, black pants, and sneakers instead of boots. It was downright adorable.

Desmond jumped to his feet as soon as Altair opened the door. “Are we leaving?” he asked and went over to Altair.

"Yeah," Altair said and ran a gentle hand over Desmond’s wet hair. "C’mon, lets go get you some real food before the heli comes," Desmond nodded and grabbed Altair’s hand as they left for mess.

—

St. Adams was a beautiful city. The capital of the FRN it was huge and sprawling. From outside the window of the heli they could see the mega structures of the inner city, tall skyscrapers of all shapes and sizes. Around it stretched ever enlarging rings of neighborhoods. It was the largest city in the FRN, and one of the largest on the continent, only Miami was bigger. At night the entire city glowed like it was made of fireflies.

Altair had missed St. Adams. Like all Assassins he’d been born in one of the outlying neighborhoods, the city only viewable through trees in the distance. But they were not citizens of St. Adams, or some even of the FRN. Technically on Altair’s birth certificate it said he was a S Fla citizen. When you were born your parents could pick what country they wanted you to be born in if not the one they had on theirs. Altair’s parents had ‘been from’ California and Texas, but they both liked S Fla, so he was from S Fla. That was his ‘official’ citizenship if he was ever in society and was asked. St. Adams though was his home, or more specifically, the Fortress was.

The sight of helis and jets over St. Adams and around it were normal sights for the citizens of the city. Jets often patrolled the sky around the city and newscasts still used helicopters. The old machines had barely changed since the Collapse, the focus going towards jets and planes that could hover, and weren’t used by the military. Helis were so common around St. Adams no one bothered to ask where they came from or what they were. Most people just assumed they were little jets since they didn’t even sound like helicopters.

The hanger behind their cover building opened as the heli started to descend and when it landed it closed back up, once again looking like an unused lot behind it.

"Well," Altair said to everyone in the heli, all of Alpha and Delta, and Desmond and Maelin, "we’re home," he smiled and unbuckled as the door was opened. The engine cut off and everyone got out. Two wheel chairs were brought over and after some bickering in German Munahid got Maelin to sit in one of them, though she looked grumpy about it. Diyari looked equally as grumpy about his wheelchair, though seemed a bit less when Jari batted away the nurse who was pushing it so he could.

"Debrief will be in an hour and a half," Altair told his squad, around he could hear Delta-one, who Altair had finally learned was named Terry, was telling his squad something similar. "Till then relax, take a shower, go see your partners, your parents, whatever."

"Yes sir," Alpha responded and they headed for the elevators. Altair grabbed Desmond’s hand and he and Terry walked to them behind their squads. There were two elevators that led down from the hanger, past the thick bulkhead made of lead and steel, and both squads squeezed into them, none of them were waiting to catch the next set.

"Idiots," Terry sighed when the elevators dinged and started to go down.

"I was just thinking that," Altair chuckled.

"Aren’t we going down there too?" Desmond asked, tugging on Altair’s hand a little.

"No," Altair shook his head as Terry rang for the other set of elevators that went up. "We’re going to see the Audi."

"I’ll have you know," Terry said idly as they waited for the elevator, "that’s been catching on."

"What?" Altair asked.

"The Audi," he smirked at Altair. "I think only Echo-one still calls him the Mentor."

Altair laughed, “Well you have Giovanni to thank for that. He called his brother that, and it just stuck around.”

"Isn’t that how all good nicknames start?" Terry grinned and their elevator dinged and opened. They got in. "Way I hear it he doesn’t like it too much," he said as he scanned his fingerprint and pressed the ground floor button. Fingerprint scans were required for elevators both in and out of the fortress bulkhead and in and out of the hanger. It prevented normal people from accidentally finding their way down here.

"Well he should really talk to Gio about it then cause he started it."

"Altair," Desmond said, "Who’s Giovanni, who’s the Audi?"

"They’re brothers," Altair explained, "Giovanni and Mario Auditore. Giovanni used to be Alpha-one, now he works at a desk in the upper levels as the CEO of our bank cover. Mario’s the Mentor, he runs the Order here in North America. We’re going to see Mario."

"Oh," Desmond frowned a little, "Is he nice?"

Altair ad Terry looked at each other, “Uh… I guess,” he wouldn’t call Mario mean, but he could be a bit strict. He had been a dick when he’d forced Malik and him to join. He’d forgotten about the mess of this season while on his mission. Now he remembered and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Just wonderful.

The elevator dinged and they got off, the elevators to the hangar were in the back of the building, so they had to go around to the front to the main bank of elevators. Desmond was starting to drag his feet, he was tired. Terry pressed the button for nearly the top floor as Altair leaned down and picked Desmond up. The kid wrapped his arms around Altair’s neck tiredly. A kid Desmond’s age should be bigger than he was, but he wasn’t. He was smaller, like pre Collapse people who were smaller than the more robust and taller people of now. Altair just thought he hadn’t reached his first growth spurt. It meant Altair could hold Desmond fairly easily.

The ride up to the top floors were quiet, then they got out and took yet another elevator up to the top floor where the Mentor lived and worked. Desmond was asleep on Altair’s shoulder by now, his broken arm tucked between his body and Altair’s chest.

The doors opened to the Mentor’s floor. The secretary wasn’t there but they walked towards the door anyway. Terry knocked and Mario called them in. Terry closed the door behind them.

"Gentlemen," Mario said when they came in. Terry saluted and Altair did the best he could holding Desmond. "Sit, sit," Mario beckoned, they sat. "Who’s this?" Mario asked Altair.

"This is who I assume you were up my ass to talk about," Altair said, adjusting Desmond a bit. The boy grumbled and woke a little. "His name is Desmond."

"You did very good Altair," Mario said. "And Terry, how is Delta?"

"Fine, sir," Terry said. "Thanks to Alpha we’re at one hundred percent and once we’ve had some cool down will be ready for our next mission."

"Good," Mario said, "Can you tell me what happened during your mission?" Mario folded his hands on the table.

"I’m not entirely sure, sir," Terry admitted. "The mission was going as planned when the entire cave just… changed. Asllia was getting readouts when Marin went down first. After talking it over none of us are even sure what happened back there. We all agree it was like a waking dream though. Some of my unit reported seeing scary shit while waiting for Alpha to retrieve us when they had their eyes open. Most of us did sleep but when we were awake our bodies were fully paralyzed."

"Did you have comms?" Mario asked.

"No. Suits were completely dead. I couldn’t even turn on my visor. Apparently we all tried the same thing, when we could open our eyes long enough. I’d suggest psych eval for all of Delta though. Especially for Marin and Talla, she was in a panic when Marin went down and thought he was dead. And Dom, he was the only one who made it out of there and he’s completely shaken, I’m surprised he even obeyed when I told him to go downstairs. He doesn’t like being away from us, or me, now."

"I’ll put through a work order," Mario said. "Did you see anyone down there?"

"No, sir. Just Delta. We didn’t get very far into the cave though, sir, so I don’t know what we missed."

"No thermals?"

"No one in Delta has thermals, sir," Terry said, making a face. Altair thought that was weird. How did they use the signs without thermals? Maybe they had a different way of doing it. Altair would bother Terry about their signals later, when they weren’t in debrief. "But we were all in low light but… it was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, sir."

"What was?"

"It was dark. And I mean like an artificial darkness. We can see in nearly perfect darkness, only a small amount of light needed. But this was hard to see in. Those who could were relying on sound to see since we were basically running blind."

Mario frowned, “You didn’t tell support this?”

"We’re Delta, sir. Along with Alpha we get the shit jobs to make the other squads look bad when we don’t fuck it up," Altair snorted. Not that it wasn’t true of course. Delta was a slightly watered down version of Alpha after all. Delta, though the fourth squad, had some guys on it that made Altair positively green with envy. Terry’s guys were badasses. Give most Alpha a few more years and they’d all be on level. "And we don’t complain when situations are annoying. We just dealt with it. And we managed… until the light that knocked out Marin. Only Don got out."

"And you didn’t see anything?" Mario clarified.

"Just the crazy walls I’m sure you’ve seen from Dom’s  helmet-

"If I could," Altair interjected, "Alpha didn’t see any of that shit. I saw Dom’s helmet feed. It looked like the walls were glowing, wouldn’t that give you enough light to see?"

"Negative," Terry said. "I don’t know what it was but while the walls glowed they didn’t give off any light."

"They’re anti lights," everyone looked at Desmond in Altair’s lap, up till now forgotten by the others, though Altair had trouble doing that since the kid was currently trying to make his thigh go to sleep.

"What?" Mario asked.

"Anti lights," Desmond said, like it was completely obvious. "You don’t have anti lights?" he cocked his head at them, confused.

"Des, what’s an anti light," Altair prompted the kid.

"They are the idea of light, but create darkness. Through a camera they appear as lights, but with your eyes it appears dark. They trick your brain, or something, into not being able to perceive them easily." Everyone was staring at Desmond. "What?" Desmond asked looking at them, "Everyone knows that."

"Desmond," Altair said and really hoped the kid wasn’t making this shit up, "there is no such thing as anti lights."

Desmond frowned, “Sure there are. My room used to be full of them. So my parents could keep an eye on me while I slept,” like it was literally the most obvious thing in the world.

Thankfully Mario seemed to know where to go from this weird explanation of the not-lights on the wall. “Which brings us to you,” Mario focused on Desmond. “Altair, report,” he said.

"If I could ask why Delta was even sent there in the first place?" Altair asked, "Our only mission briefing was to retrieve Delta and inspect the area for hostiles. But why was Delta sent out there in the first place?" Altair shifted and moved Desmond to his other leg because his thigh was asleep.

"We detected systematic seismic activity in the area. We thought it was some sort of weapon, or even if it was just regular seismic activity it could potentially be damaging. Delta was sent out to inspect the area. They came upon the cave by chance."

"Our original mission was just to scout fifteen klicks in all directions from our insertion point for foreign interests, or Abstergo tampering. One of the original thoughts was that they were blowing stuff inside the mountain, creating the seismic tremors," Terry said. "Angia found the cave."

"Now Altair, give your report," Mario said.

"We found Delta easily, none of that crazy ‘anti light’ or whatever Delta saw. Just rock.  Half of Alpha took them back to the heli, dunno if you remember that?" he turned to Terry briefly.

"Yes," Terry said, "I was trying to yell at you but I couldn’t move my mouth."

Altair chuckled, “The other half of Alpha went further into the mountain. We’d made it another few hundred feet before Serenity told me there was more seismic activity. That’s when there was the cave in. Everyone but me made it out and I shit you not sir: when I woke up this kid was standing right over me and,” he looked down at Desmond, “show him what you did.”

"Show him what?" Desmond asked.

"You know," and Altair went into Classic.

"Oh," Desmond turned to Mario and blinked, his eyes going golden.

Mario went very still, “You have Eagle Vision,” Mario said. Desmond nodded. “That is… most unusual.”

"So I found the kid and he led me out. At one point I lost all radio contact with support and my helmet went down. So I couldn’t see anything for a time. I just knew we were in a tall, narrow, corridor, and it didn’t feel natural. Once outside the black zone I could see again and made my way to rendezvous with the rest of Alpha and the heli. There isn’t a lot to tell sir. The only weird shit that happened to me was this booger right here," he patted Desmond’s head.

"And what about you Desmond? Do you have anything to report?"

Desmond didn’t say anything for a moment, though Altair could imagine, from him shifting slightly, that he was starting to grin. Then he started to talk, but it was no language Altair had ever heard from. It nearly sounded like gibberish except for the consistency of the sounds which had a cadence like language. Desmond spoke like that for a solid five minutes before, finally in English, going, “And that’s all I have to report,” he seemed so smug about it too. Altair wasn’t aware children could even be smug, but Desmond was.

"What was that?" Terry was the first one to speak after that, and he sounded how Altair felt; completely stupefied.

"My report," Desmond said.

"What language was that," Terry clarified.

"Mmm, I don’t know. I just picked one I liked the sound of," and Desmond laughed.

"What?" Mario asked.

"I just picked one."

"How many languages do you know?" Mario clarified.

"Mmmm, I’d say more than a dozen, fluently, spoken and written. All the common ones from nowadays, bunch of nearly dead ones since they can be useful. I can do six figure arithmetic in my head too," Desmond said proudly.

Atair was openly staring at the child in his lap. This kid was completely unreal. “What’s your first language?” though he was almost afraid to ask.

"English," Desmond said, "Well… not modern English. That’s the second language. Then German, then Korean, then a bunch of others but after four it just sort of looks like I’m bragging," Desmond said proudly.

"You’re eleven?" Altair asked. Desmond nodded enthusiastically. Altair rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Where do you come from Desmond?" Mario asked. Desmond said nothing. "Desmond, answer me."

"No," Desmond said.

Mario looked annoyed, “I’m the Mentor, answer me,” he ordered.

"I’m not an Assassin. I don’t have to do anything you say. I just happened to like Altair the best," he turned around and smiled at Altair broadly, "He’s good at helping people."

"Altair-

"I don’t know what you want me to do, sir," Altair said quickly. "I can’t make him talk if he doesn’t want to talk. Honestly I’m surprised he’s not chattering away cause it seems like he never shuts up," he sighed.

"Hey," Desmond whined.

"Kid, you’re eleven and annoying and talk too much," Altair gave him a look, Desmond just stuck his tongue out at Altair.

"Do you want to continue to stay with Altair, Desmond?" Mario asked, and Altair didn’t like where this was going. He had grown attached to Desmond in the past week or so since he’d found him in the mountain, the entire squad had. He was like their kid brother. Altair wrapped a protective arm around Desmond when Mario said that. "If so then you will have to become an Assassin, because we don’t allow normals in the fortress. Meaning you will have to obey our rules, and thus mine."

Desmond stuck his tongue out at Mario too, “You wouldn’t send me outside. You think you know what I am so you want to keep me in here. So your threat about taking me away is stupid. You’re stupid. My parents warned me about the Mentor of the Assassins same as the other world factions. You’re all so dumb when it comes to basic stuff it’s really amazing actually. You want me here and even if you want to you won’t take me away from Altair. I picked him.” Mario blinked. Clearly he’d never been spoken to like that.

Terry was leaning forward a bit to look at Desmond, “…Did he just call the Mentor an idiot?” he asked no one.

"He is an idiot," Desmond folded his arms across his chest. "And a bigger one if he thinks that just because I’m in his fortress that I have to answer all his questions. Because I’m not answering any of them. Unless you want me to answer them in Japanese, which I can do but no one knows how to speak Japanese anymore so it’d be a wasted effort."

"You just enjoy being difficult, don’t know?" Mario asked.

"Only to dummies. Altair’s smart. He just accepts that there’s stuff he can’t know and never know. Sometimes it’s better to let some mysteries exist in the world."

"And you’re one of those mysteries?"

"We are," Desmond said with absolute authority. Altair now wanted to see what this kid would look like as an adult. If he talked to Mario like this as a child what was he going to act like when he was grown up.

Mario looked pensive, he tapped his fingers on the table a few times. “Fine,” he said. “The mystery remains. Terry, would you take Desmond downstairs to the hospital. There are doctors down there waiting for him.”

"I don’t wanna see more doctors," Desmond whined.

Mario pretended he hadn’t spoken, “They’re going to give him a physical and keep him overnight.”

"Yes, sir," Terry said and stood up.

"But I wanna stay," Desmond complained.

"Des, I still have the rest of my debrief to get through, and I would rather you not be here for it. Go with Terry, I’ll see you when I’m done," Altair said, Desmond turned to frown at him. "Go on, and don’t give me those doe eyes I got two boys; that shit doesn’t work."

Heaving a sigh Desmond slid off Altair’s lap and followed Terry out of the office.

When the door closed Mario said, “He’s an interesting boy,” he said.

"Yeah. Wanna explain what the hell he was talking about?"

Mario frowned a little, “He was right about you Altair,” Mario said, “You know that there are things you can and never will know.”

Altair sighed a little, “Yes, sir,” he said.

"Good. Now, tell me about what happened in Utah and why you allowed half the Temple to get blown up," Altair groaned and slouched in his chair. This was going to be painful.

—

Rauf woke to his alarm, a slowly pulsing light that emanated from his wall. Groggily he smacked his hand against the wall to turn it off and then sat up and rubbed his eyes. That was about the end of his sleepiness. Rauf was a morning person, like most Assassins. Well, more most Assassins just woke up early, to hell with the fact if they were or weren’t morning people. He and Altair were both morning people and according to Altair most of Alpha loathed him for being so.

Once he was awake and had rubbed the sleep out of his eyes he went about his normal, daily, morning routine. He did his morning exercises, push ups, sit ups, pull ups, and several stretches. Once he was limber for his day of class he went to clean up. He took a shower, trimmed his beard, ran a brush through it and his hair, brushed his teeth, and wandered around his room in just a towel for a few minutes aimlessly. Then he got dressed in the casual uniform, white shirt, black pants, boots. When not working, or once they didn’t have training as novices every day, adults could wear whatever the hell they wanted. Most fell back on the standard white and black though, though Rauf knew plenty of people who wore colors, you just had to go buy them yourselves and most people didn’t want to go through the hassle of dealing with society to buy other clothes.

Rauf did a mental checklist of everything he needed for today’s class, distracted as he opened the door  and nearly collided with someone. He barely had a chance to see who it was before he couldn’t see them because they were leaning down and were kissing him. Rauf’s eyebrows jumped up to his hairline and then he recognized the feel of the scar on Altair’s mouth and the low current of resonance that started to hum in his bones.

Rauf wrapped his arms around Altair’s neck without thinking. Then Altair hugged him fiercely and leaned back, picking him up. “Ah! Altair stop that!” Rauf hated being picked up more than anything. He only tolerated it from Altair and even then it was only sometimes.

Chuckling Altair let him go and stood back, but kept his arms around Rauf’s back, “Man, I missed you so much,” Altair said. Every point Altair touched him made Rauf feel weak. They had a strong resonance and while normally Rauf ignored their resonance because it was rather common place, whenever Altair came home from a long mission it just reminded Rauf how strong it was. He sort of took how well they fit together for granted honestly. But he and Altair did fit. Rauf resonated with a few other people, but the frequency was always a little off, a little out of tune. With Altair the electrical thrum across his nerve between the two of them was nearly perfect.

No one really knew what the resonance was. It had appeared some time after the Collapse. It didn’t hurt and just was something natural that happened. All bodies projected at slightly different frequencies, their general ‘sound’ different from others. Resonance was the ability to feel how your ‘sound’ matched with others’ sounds. The closer two people were to resonating on the same level the better they got along. He’d never heard of perfect resonance, but what he and Altair had was close.

People liked to say that those who had high resonance were meant to be soul mates. Rauf knew that wasn’t true though. Altair and Malik had an even higher ability to resonate than even him and Altair. But the two of them hated each other. Like to the point they could barely be in the same room together. And what he had with Altair was nothing so romantic as ‘soul mates’ since sometimes it wasn’t easy or simple. Sometimes Altair bothered the hell out of him and made him want to punch him in the fucking face.

"I missed you too," Rauf said and Altair leaned down and kissed him again.

"Come to breakfast with me," Altair said, arm still around Rauf’s waist.

"I was just headed there," Rauf smiled. Altair unsnaked his arm from around Rauf’s waist and just took his hand instead as they headed for the elevators. "How was your mission?"

"Good."

"When’d you come in?"

"Last night- and before you say anything, it was late and I didn’t want to wake you up," he said before Rauf could yell at him for not showing up last night. "I had a lot of stuff to do before I went to bed for I just let you sleep," and he leaned down and nuzzled Rauf affectionately while they waited for an elevator. Rauf smiled, pleased.

"So do I get to meet this mystery boy?" Rauf asked.

"Later, probably," Altair promised him.

"You going to sit in on my class today?"

"Would you mind?" the elevator doors opened for them and Rauf hit the button for the cafe.

"Not at all," Rauf said and squeezed Altair’s hand, "You go see your baby?"

"Yes," Altair nodded, "I did before I went to bed. I had drop off a report to support, so I stopped on my way down to deliver it," he shrugged.

"That’s good. Also, Malik isn’t nearly as bad as you’ve led me to believe."

Altair made a face, “He’s horrid,” he declared.

Rauf chuckled a little, “Just because you don’t get along doesn’t make him bad Altair,” he reminded Altair, “He’s actually pretty nice.”

"Uhg, please don’t tell me you made friends," Altair groaned.

"Well I have to be able to complain about you to someone-

"Rauf!" he cried.

Rauf laughed, “You’re so sensitive,” he patted Altair’s cheek affectionately, Altair whined lowly at him. Rauf still got a kick out of the fact that Altair was one of the baddest badasses on the entire continent and when he dealt with Rauf he sort of just turned into a puppy dog. “I wouldn’t say friends, but I don’t hate him. I had dinner with him and some of his friends.”

"Uhg," the elevator opened into the cafe. The entire two floors of the mess were dedicated to food, with the upper floor being strictly for adults and served alcohol. Here was one of the only areas of the fortress where non Assassins were allowed to work along with the engineering and science labs. There were chefs from all over here, and they were brought here in secret on their agreement, they could leave at any time but while they worked here they were not permitted top side. Tastes varied widely in the fortress and there were at least six head chefs of various styles of cooking here at any one time. Rauf remembered when he’d first gone out on his pilgrimage he’d been surprised that people in the US had never had Mexican food or French. Here in the fortress everything was brought together, while in society it was fractured.

"Don’t be a baby," Rauf said, pulling Altair out into the mess. The smell of breakfast from six different cultures permeated the air. Rauf found himself wanting something light though, not feeling very hungry and went to just find some pastry and coffee, leaving Altair to get his own breakfast.

Raf found Altair again first, Altair was waiting on sausages to go with the rest of the mountain of food he was having. “Hungry?” Rauf asked.

"They have shit in Marcusville," Altair said, "and Colorado isn’t exactly known for their food either. So yeah, I’m hungry," Rauf laughed a little and once Altair had gotten his sausages they went and sat down at a table next to a window. Fake window of course since they were nearly a mile underground, but the screen behind the fixture looked like the early morning, the sun up. The Core Programmers seemed to be in a ocean mood the entire week because every time Rauf looked out a window somewhere in the fortress he was looking out onto a beach, or over some cliffs over the ocean. Today was no different.

"Looks like Florida," Altair said, glancing out the window and eating like he hadn’t had food since he left St. Adams more than a week ago.

"Probably is, Rebecca said she likes Florida."

"Rebecca?" Altair asked, raising an eyebrow, but he didn’t stop eating as Rauf sipped his coffee.

"The Red Queen-

Altair stopped eating, “You know the Red Queen? Since when?” he demanded, not meanly, but curiously.

"Malik," Rauf said smugly and Altair groaned in annoyance. "His partner in support is the Red Queen’s partner, they have a daughter. She’s really cute," he said thoughtfully.

"Wonderful," Altair grumbled.

"Don’t act so moody. If you and Malik actually sat down and talked for more than five minutes I don’t think you’d hate each other so much," Rauf scolded him gently.

"Yeah and give him a chance to actually bite my head off? No thanks. He’s been like this since we were novices. He detests me," Altair went back to eating. "I’m gonna try and see Darim before classes start, and see Sef once they’re over."

"That sounds like a good idea," Rauf agreed. "And your baby?"

"I’ll stop by if I have to. But they aren’t going anywhere. Besides, I haven’t been home in over a week," and Altair bumped his boot against Rauf’s. Rauf just drank his coffee with a grin. He rose his brows when someone suddenly sat next to Altair and someone else was next to their table. Rauf recognized the man who was average in most ways except for his lack of a chin, his dark hair buzzed back in a fade as Jari, Alpha-seven, but… who was the kid?

Altair looked over at the kid, and then up at Jari, “Care to explain yourself, son?” he asked, annoyed.

"Sorry, sir," Jari said sheepishly, "but he begged and was being difficult with the nurses."

Altair scowled at the child, who seemed happy to see Altair. He was younger than Darim with brown hair and brown eyes and had a cast on his arm. “What were you doing now?”

"They were trying to poke me with needles," and the boy showed off the underside of his arm, which was absolutely riddled with needle marks.

Altair looked up at Jari sternly, “I yelled at them already,” Jari said, “Trust me I did. He was talking to them in Japanese when they asked him questions and kept asking for you, I told him you were probably with Rauf and having breakfast.”

"I wanted breakfast too," the kid said cheerfully.

Altair sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, “Go get him some breakfast, Jari. You can leave him here when you’re done,” and he waved them both off like they were the biggest pains in the ass he’d ever encountered.

"Who was that?" Rauf asked once they were gone, though Rauf had a feeling he knew.

"That’s the kid I was telling you about. His name is Desmond and he’s turning into the biggest pain in the ass," he groaned.

Rauf laughed, “So he’s just like you then?”

"I’ll show you pain in the ass," Altair threatened and Rauf flushed a little, knowing exactly what Altair was referring to.

A few minutes later Desmond and Jari returned, though Jari didn’t stay, saying he needed to get back to the hospital. “Hi,” Desmond said to Rauf before he started to eat.

"Desmond, this is Rauf," Altair said.

Desmond looked at Rauf, looked at Altair, then looked back at Rauf, “You look way too nice to be with him,” and he jerked his thumb at Altair. Altair fumed a little and Rauf laughed.

"Sometimes I don’t think he’s wrong," Rauf said, smiling.

"Please don’t encourage him," Altair groaned. "Why couldn’t you just answer the doctor’s questions?" he demanded as Desmond ate his breakfast, which had way too much sugar on it.

"I did. And then they started getting nosy and I missed you," Altair looked unimpressed by the answer.

"I can’t baby sit you every day, Desmond," Altair told him sternly. "Once the doctors actually release you you’re going to take your levels."

"I know," Desmond frowned, "Munahid told me. It sounds so boring though."

"Tough shit," Desmond and Altair traded annoyed looks and Rauf laughed. "What?" he demanded of Rauf.

"I’m sorry. You two are just so alike. It’s cute," Rauf said, covering his mouth.

"I’m not cute!" they both cried at the same time and then Altair scowled at Desmond. Rauf kept laughing. "Rauf," Altair complained.

"Of course you aren’t, dear," Rauf said once he could control himself and patted Altair’s hand fondly. "Now I have to prepare for class. So you two play nice and I’ll see you in a little bit," he told Altair and got up. Altair leaned around Desmond to grab Rauf’s arm as he went to give his dishes back so he had to swing back around. Altair tugged Rauf down to kiss him again nicely.

"See ya," Altair said when he let go and Rauf was actually able to go do what he had to do.

—

Altair was waiting outside one of the classrooms. Not Rauf’s classroom, a lower level. Darim was in his fifth level of classes. And he was skipping. So Altair was waiting. One to see his son, and another so he could twist his ear about the fact that he was skipping classes. Not even for a second did he even think Darim’s mother cared either, so he was here to do it.

Maria was… a hard woman and very dedicated to their cause. But she didn’t like children. Mario had joined them when they were both young partially to see what would happen if two highly skilled assassins who didn’t have a very strong resonance had a child, and partially to make sure that Altair’s line didn’t end with him doing something stupid. It had been weeks after he’d come back from his pilgrimage and the reason for his early return had still been too painful to cope with. Both his parents had been dead by then, they’d died trying to help protect the European fortress. It wasn’t that Maria didn’t like Darim… well, she didn’t really, but she didn’t really like Altair either to be honest. It was more she wasn’t maternal at all. They’d both been young when Darim was born, neither of them knew how to be an adult, much less have a kid. She saw Darim sometimes, but didn’t associate with Altair unless she had to. Their meetings were always polite and cordial.

Altair was much more hands on. He knew some parents who let the Order raise their children. Altair had grown up with his until they’d been killed. They’d been important to him, made him who he was. He wanted to be important to his children too. Not that he was always the best dad. But damnit he did try. Especially since Darim and Sef weren’t the only kid who called him ‘dad’. All of Alpha did. And while he knew how to run a mission sometimes they came to him for other stuff and… well he fucked that up sometimes too.

He just hoped he wasn’t fucking up his kids (the whole extended bunch of them) too much with his inability though.

Boys and girls trickled into the room slowly, Darim had the largest class in twenty years at nearly three dozen children. It was unprecedented but seasons were becoming bigger. More people were dying than were born. If the European fortress didn’t come back within fifty years there would be two fortresses for the entire world, one for each hemisphere. Without larger seasons it would be impossible to keep up with demand of their skills. According to Maelin the Shanghai fortress already had seasons of fifty since the Australian fortress had been quiet for so long and with both the Near East and European fortresses gone the strain was starting to show. If they didn’t have more children soon augmented humans would be an even more endagered breed than they already were.

Altair saw Darim before Darim saw him. But he knew the instant Darim saw him because his eyes widened and he looked torn between wanting to run at him and wanting to run away. No doubt Rauf had told Darim he’d told Altair about his skipping. Being Alpha-one there was one thing Altair did not tolerate (and it was why it made Desmond so frustrating) and that was disobedience.

Eventually though Darim’s need to see him won out and he continued down the hall towards his room with some other kids of various ages, all headed for their own classes in the circular floor. “Eh… hi dad,” he said awkwardly.

"That’s all you gotta say for your old man?" Altair gave him a look.

"Well… you’re not dead, so that’s good," everything about his poor kid was awkward. He was going through puberty now and was going through a minor growth spurt. According to Rauf the instructors of the twelve through fourteen year olds were switched out every few years because kids going through puberty were horrible little nightmares. In Rauf’s words.

"Come give me a hug," Altair said and Darim grinned and embraced him. Altair wrapped his arms around Darim’s shoulders tightly. He knew he should savor this while he could. Soon Darim would be ‘too big’ to want to give his dad hugs when he got home from missions. "I’m really glad you’re home, safe," Darim said into his chest.

"Me too," Altair said and kissed the top of Darim’s head. "Rauf said I need to have a talk with you-

"I only skipped once," Darim said quickly. "I wanted to go see Sef  so I skipped the last hour or so of class. That was it. Promise."

Altair held Darim at arm’s length and gave him a long look over, “No more skipping.”

"No more skipping," Darim sighed and looked at the ground sheepishly.

"Next time," Altair started and Darim looked up, confused, "don’t get caught. Like I didn’t," Altair smirked and after a second Darim grinned widely.

"Yeah dad-

"Darim, class is about to start," a kid poked their head out to tell Darim.

"Okay, I’m coming. Bye dad."

Altair hugged him one more time, this time under more protest than before, “Do good,” he told Darim letting him go.

"I’m your son, of course I will," Darim said, still grinning, and went into his classroom. Once the door was sealed and became nearly seamless Altair left and took the stairs up to the top floor which looked exactly like the one below it except that the kids up here were older. Altair found the ninth classroom, the door was still open, and went in.

Rauf was standing at his podium, looking over something on the screen, and the seventeen kids in the class were sitting on benches in a large garden talking amid each other waiting for class to start. Desmond had begged and begged to go with Altair so he didn’t have to go back to the hospital. So after checking with Rauf Altair had brought him along. He was sitting on the benches with the older kids who were all looking at Desmond strangely wondering why he was here, in a cast no less. Rauf looked up when he got closer.

"Ah, there you are," Rauf said and wiped his finger across the screen, the door closed and the room became seamless and an expansive garden full of flowers and neatly trimmed hedges, a water feature in view but behind some bushes. "You see Darim?"

"Yes. He said no more skipping. So, what’s the plan for today?"

"Lets see how they do under stress," Rauf said deviously. "Everyone," he called and the talking quieted instantly. "Today we have a guest. This is Master Altair, he’s a member of Alpha," everyone’s eyes got wide, staring at Altair. "And his… son, Desmond, who’s just here to watch while he’s out of classes for his arm. You’re to ignore him," and thankfully Desmond said nothing. "Today Altair will be running the practical parts of your simulations. Altair," Rauf looked at him to continue.

Altair stood at parade rest, his hands behind his back. “While not my official designation, today will refer to me as Alpha-one,” next to him he felt more than saw Rauf attempt to not laugh, “or ‘sir’. How many of you want to try out for Alpha?” he asked, “Go on, raise your hand I won’t bite it off,” he encouraged. Half the class raised their hands. “How many of you have support EVs?” only three raised their hands, two girls and a boy, and one of the girls had also wanted to be in Alpha.

"Today," he walked over to the podium and looked at what Rauf was doing. Altair had an idea of how to work the things worked and as he spoke he brought up some of the prefab simulation rooms, "you will be training as Alpha trains. Now everyone get up," the seats melted away as Altair brought up a prefab of an outside yard covered in dirt, the class got up. "Desmond come here," Altair beckoned and the kid came over, Rauf pulled up a chair and Altair directed Desmond into it. Desmond sat, looking interested.

"Sir?" someone asked, raising their hand a little.

"Yes?" Altair asked, looking away from the podium he was tapping things into. Rauf saw what he was doing and continued, at a much faster rate, in his stead.

"What about if we don’t want to be in Alpha?"

"Do you want to be in some other squad?" Altair asked.

"Ah… yes sir. Charlie, sir," he said.

"I know Charlie-one," Altair said, "And Beta-one, and Delta-one, and Echo-one, and Foxtrot-one, and Gamma-one, and Theta-one" Altair said, listing the main combat units. "And they’ve told my boss, the actual Alpha-one, that if they can’t keep up with Alpha they aren’t interested," Altair walked to the front of the class to stand in front of them, standing at easy parade rest, he noticed some of the kids standing up a bit straighter with him in front of them. "Alpha is the spearhead of our organization. We are first in, last out. Beta, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Gamma and Theta all defer to us, and especially on what makes a field agent. If you try for Alpha, and you fail; as most Alpha-Betas do, any other squad will take you. Because you can keep up, but you didn’t fit. You fail at Charlie, they’re a highly specialized unit with much more specific criteria than Alpha to join, and you get bumped down to Foxtrot, or Gamma."

"Sir," a girl asked, looking at Altair with fire in her eyes, "What are the criteria for joining Alpha?"

"Two things," Altair held up two fingers, "One: you have to either be the best, or have a specific skill that Alpha does not already contain. And Two: you have to work well with the rest of Alpha. All the other units know that if you fail at Alpha it isn’t because you don’t have the skills, it’s because Alpha isn’t for you; and they want you instead. Every member of Beta, Charlie, and Delta, were at one point failed members of Alpha. Which is why if you wanna be in Charlie, you wanna be in Alpha. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," several people said.

"Good."

"Alpha-one," he turned when Rauf spoke. Rauf never used his designation, and Altair wasn’t expecting it. He also wasn’t expecting to find it a turn on. "The sim is ready," he said.

"Good," he needed to focus on something besides his dick (which was getting progressively more difficult was the morning wore on) until at least lunch. "For today all of you are no longer your name. You are a field number, and you will only refer to each other as such." And he had them count off. "Good. Now you’re going to warm up like Alpha, and once you’re done you’ll go through the same courses we go through. Rauf, if you would?" he turned to Rauf and several extra pieces of equipment appeared on the dirt field.

Altair looked back at the students, some of whom looked very apprehensive, and the one girl who had the fire in her eyes. Altair had no doubt he’d be seeing her again in a few years when she tried out for Alpha and passed the preliminary test. He grinned, a slightly cruel grin, because these kids had no idea what they were in for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I’ve got some stuff planned for the next few chapters. But, I also wanna know what readers wanna see. As in, which characters you would like to see. If you just wanna see more Altair that’s cool, but tell me. Maybe you wanna see some other canon character (don’t ask for Ezio he’s got more stuff coming already), cool; tell me. Or an OC you like. Just. Tell me.


	13. Just as I am

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So people wanted more Malik, more Jari and Diyari (jfc you guys I don’t…), more ladies (amen just jfc AC is full of dicks), more Sef, more Tazim, and more Altair and Rauf
> 
> I think I covered just about all of that

From: [information expunged]

To: [information expunged]

Title: re: Investment opportunity

CAD-093 obtain asset properly. Have the asset contact us at [information expunged] or [information expunged]. Payment will be delivered upon first contact.

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Delete this message. Do not contact unless important or you locate another asset.

[information expunged]

—

Malik was going over the security tapes again. Frame by frame, enhancing what he could and bringing new things into focus. He’d been working on this for nearly three weeks now. He and Shaun hadn’t had a single insertion mission since they’d led that small Alpha unit into Utah. Apparently they were all fine.

The thought distracted Malik from what he was doing when his thoughts, against his will, shifted to Altair. He now knew Altair was Alpha-one. The Alpha-one. It made him so jealous to think about. Malik could have been on Alpha, Giovanni had liked him, but it didn’t work out. Altair had already been on Alpha when he’d tried out and the two of them got along like oil and water. There could be no disagreeing relationships in Alpha and both of them had been too young and petty to get over their dislike.

Malik shook his head. He couldn’t think about Altair. He was running these filters over this footage. It was the footage from Delta-four’s helmet that day when Delta had gone down. They still didn’t know what happened or who had done it. They had a bit more information but not much.

At least there was more than just Delta-four’s brief footage. All of Delta was recording when they went into that cave, but it wasn’t feeding back to the fortress. So once the helmets had come back positive for footage they’d been delivered to him and Shaun and they’d cracked the helmets open to remove the ‘black box’ data chip. For the past three weeks since the event they’d been pouring over the six feeds, looking for anything. They laid filters over the footage, got nothing substantial, command up the chain told them to lay different filters, they repeated.

They did this for three weeks and Malik’s eyes were about to fall out.

He rubbed his eyes as he leaned back in his chair. His eyes actually hurt from the tiring work he and Shaun were doing. It was their job to find the anomaly that had downed an entire squad of elite soldiers since they’d been the support on call. Next to him Shaun was wearing a special pair of goggles that enhanced his already enhanced vision beyond what the EVs could do. “There’s nothing fucking here!” Malik cried and slumped in his chair. “I’ve looked at these same fucking six frames at least twelve times,” he groaned and rubbed his face.

"I feel ya, mate," Shaun said and looked at him, pushing the goggles up. Shaun’s eyes were incredibly small without his glasses. Though maybe that was just because Malik had been staring at a holoscreen for so long, and things didn’t look as they should. "But, command says we do this."

"I know," Malik groaned, "But it’s so fucking useless. I haven’t even seen my fucking kid in three weeks because I’m too tired after I get done here! I just wanna go up to my room and rest my eyes."

Shaun nodded, he got that, “I haven’t seen Liz a lot either,” he frowned, “but we gotta do it.”

"I wish we could have another set of eyes," Malik rubbed his eyes again. "Alpha-one saw that anomaly in the footage of Delta-four when we missed it. I think us staring at this shit is making us shit at it," he groaned.

"Maybe. Should I tell Becca? She could get this item transferred to someone else. We still have all the filtered footage so they could catch what we missed."

Malik sighed and folded his arms over his chest, “That might be the best solution honestly. Give the task to some new support or something. They won’t know the hell they’re looking at anyway so it won’t be a security breach.”

Shaun looked at his terminal, “It’s getting late. I think we should go. Get some supper-

"And a drink," Malik added and leaned forward to close out his work.

"And relax for the night," Shaun finished with a slight grin.

"Sounds good to me," Malik nodded. The two of them went through the steps to close down their stations before heading for the elevators.

"How’s Rauf doing?" Shaun asked as they walked, Shaun liked Rauf, though they weren’t friends really. Not like Malik was with him. "Isn’t level move up soon? I remember instructors were really protective of their students."

"He’s fine. And it isn’t for a few more months. Same time as age roll over."

"Ah, right. Always forget that bit. In Europe they did it at the middle of roll over," he said as they arrived at the elevators and Malik summoned one. There were no birthdays in the fortress, everyone had the same birthday, since they were all born at the same time, every year, unless there was a complication with an AWC (which happened rarely enough to not be an issue). There was simply the roll over, when everyone in the fortress got a year older. For the novices in their tenth level it was also the day they started their pilgrimage. Roll over was also a fortress wide day off for everyone except for cooks and the Core programmers.

"That’s still so weird," Malik told him. "Like… why? So everyone is six months ahead of each other?"

"Yeah. You Americans do it a lot more simply. Just at the roll over," the elevator came and they both got in. Malik clicked the button for the top most level the elevator could reach which was just to the top of the lower bulkhead that protected the support levels and the Core.

"Rebecca been seeing Liz at least?"

"Oh yeah. I basically eat and go right to sleep," Shaun said, "and lemme tell you… Bec ain’t happy about it," Malik laughed.

"So I shouldn’t be surprised if we keep working on this that she shows up and comes in to sit on your lap then?

Shaun winced at that, “Let’s hope nothing that extreme,” Shaun said. “But she sees Liz, tells her daddy is working really hard, and that’s about it,” Shaun leaned against the elevator as they passed the top floor of support.

"How’s she doing? Last update I got was she was sick," Malik asked.

"She’s fine. Not sick, they’ve been giving her supplements to help with her immune system."

"That’s good."

"And you haven’t seen Tazim?"

"Not a once," Malik groaned, "Or been to the nursery. I’m just too damn tired after staring at that fucking screen all day."

"Amen," Shaun agreed and they finally passed through the thick bulkhead. The elevator dinged and they got out and called the next one. A fortress wide one since Malik had the rank to do so being a Third-class, Shaun gladly always mooched off Malik’s rank when he could to move about the fortress since he was an Aux-class. It meant they might have to wait a bit longer to get it but they could go from level eleven straight to level thirty-one without interuption. "You should invite Rauf to dinner with us again at some point. I know some of the other guys liked him too. That and because of him Becca wants me to grow a beard."

Malik gave Shaun a look, “You, a beard?” and he snorted.

"Yeah that was sort of what I thought," Shaun lamented. "But really," he added.

"I’ve tried. Rauf just said his partner didn’t want him to. Or… rather he didn’t want to irritate his partner by being around."

"The hell? What sort of manipulative bullshit is that?" Shaun demanded as one of seven full fortress elevators showed up. No one got out and they went in.

"His partner is Altair," Malik said as Shaun jammed thirty-one maybe too forcefully with his thumb. "So I can imagine Altair doesn’t want his partner anywhere near me. Who knows I might ‘contaminate him’,"

"That’s such horse shit," Shaun grumbled.

"Yeah. But it’s why Rauf hasn’t been around since… they got back," he almost said Alpha, but he didn’t. Knowing the members of Alpha wasn’t exactly secret, but knowing the numbers were. Only Alpha and the Mentor were supposed to know which name went to which number. Obviously though Altair told Rauf, and Rauf had spilled it to him.

"So dumb," Shaun bitched, "It’s so nice having a break between crazy techs, grumpy support, and violent agents. Rauf’s just… nice."

"Yeah he is."

"And from what you’ve told me; way too good for Altair."

"No shit," Malik agreed.

The elevator dinged and stopped at the nursery level. Someone, their face partially blocked by the kid they were carrying, walked in, and pressed the button for floor twenty-five. Malik looked at the new member of the elevator, on the other side from him and Shaun, and cocked his head to the side. There was something really familiar about them but Malik didn’t know what. The kid they were holding was talking to someone beyond them and Malik looked down and saw the child was talking to a boy a few years older. His arm was in a brace Malik recognized as the secondary brace you got when you broke your arm and it had healed, but was still tender. The two boys were talking back and forth about some sort of toy of some sort. Who Malik guessed was their father leaned against the elevator wall, and seemed totally oblivious to the conversation.

They were at level twenty-two when Malik realized why it felt so familiar. The younger kid was Sef, Rauf’s son. But the man holding him was too tall to be Rauf. Rauf said Sef had an older brother, so he guessed the other kid with the broken arm was Darim. That meant that the only person it could be there was Altair and that was why Malik kept feeling that annoying twitch of being so close to him. It was their resonance. A low tone below human hearing that Malik could feel in the follicles of his hair on his arms and back of his neck like a low voltage electrical charge. It instantly made Malik feel dirty and invaded.

"You cool?" Shaun asked as they got up to floor twenty-three and sensed Malik’s sudden irritation.

"That’s the reason Rauf won’t hang out with us," Malik said, loud enough for Altair to hear. Sef didn’t even notice, but Altair sure as hell did.

Altair leaned around Sef’s form, the boy pushing himself over Altair’s shoulder to continue to talk to Darim down below. “You mind keeping your venom in your mouth so you don’t poison my kid?” Altair asked mildly.

"Fuck you-

"Oooo, you said a bad word," Sef said, turning and looking at Malik now, "Daddy he said a bad word."

"Yeah he did Sef," Altair said, adjusting Sef in his arms, "Don’t be like Malik. He says lots of bad words. Okay?"

"I don’t need to speak English to call you a shit head though," Malik said in French, which he knew Altair knew.

"Do you have to be hostile to me just cause we’re in the same room? I am literally standing here with two kids under thirteen leaving you alone. Go get fucked or something," Altair growled back.

"Also, stop telling Rauf what to do. He’s a grown ass man who can make his own choices."

"He’s been staying away from you all on his own you little guttershit," Altair was getting more heated and that sent a thrill down Malik’s spine. It was definitely a pavlovian reaction to piss Altair off. Malik got such a head rush from it, knowing that he could crawl under someone’s skin like it was nothing. "Cause he knows you fucking hate me and loves me more than he wants to be friends with you and hear you shit on me."

"I can’t shit on what’s already shit," Malik taunted him.

Altair glared at him, “Really Malik, get fucked,” the elevator dinged, “And don’t fucking talk to Rauf any more. He said you weren’t so bad. Glad to know you can still be a two faced piece of shit around me. Port,” and he walked out of the elevator on floor twenty-five, the two boys in tow. Only because Shaun grabbed his arm did he not go after Altair and punch him in his smug face for that last remark too.

"Just… just deep breaths, Malik," Shaun told him once the doors closed.

"I want to fucking KILL HIM!" Malik yelled and Shaun shied away from him.

"Don’t y-yell at me. I’m just a bystander here," Shaun said.

Malik was literally about to breathe fire out of pure rage. Field agents had all sorts of nasty things to say about support (about as many nasty things as support had to say about field agents), and one of the worst ones was port. Because all a port was good for was sticking something else into it.

"I want to wrap my hands around that dog’s neck and strangle him," Malik growled venomously and it was a good thing Altair wasn’t there since he’d punch Malik for the dog comment. He’d done it before.

Shaun was quiet for a second, “I am on your side Malik but… you totally asked for that.”

"Excuse me?" Malik snarled.

"You did attack him for no reason. I mean he was just standing there with his kids, not bothering you or anything. What the hell went through your head to make you do that?"

That brought Malik up short a little. Really though, why did he do that? “I just…” he paused and while he was still mad about the port comment it did pass. They got up the mess level and the door dinged and opened. “It’s just… habit I guess,” he said sounding confused even to himself as they stepped out of the elevator. “I just do it when I see him because he pisses me off so much. Like just him existing makes me mad,” and existing as Alpha-one. But that was an entirely different level of pissed.

Shaun looked at him, “You, my friend, have got problems,” and then Shaun left him to go find himself some food, leaving Malik standing by the door by himself. All his anger leached out, suddenly feeling like an asshole. God damnit.

—

He knew she was there. She liked to think she was sneaky but Warren hadn’t been born yesterday. “I know you’re there, young lady,” he said as he went over some files on his tablet.

"Awww," and she stood up, in front of his desk, "You’re no fun Warren," she told him.

"Well unlike Thomas I do not enjoy getting pounced on by children," Warren didn’t lok at her right then. His brows creased at what he was reading. "Why don’t you go find him? I’m sure he’ll play with you.

Lucy came over to his chair and put her hands on the arm of it. He honestly didn’t know why she’d decided she liked him, but she did. William would have been more than happy to take her off Warren’s hands, but they’d tried that. She’d started only talking in Greek when told she wasn’t allowed to spend time with Warren. As Greek was a dead language it just made things difficult, and she was difficult and uncooperative with William. So she was allowed free access of Warren’s office. “I don’t wanna play with Thomas,” she said.

He gave her a look from his tablet, “I’m not going to play with you,” he told her. He was too old for children’s games.

"I know," and she put her chin in her hands and looked at him, elbows on the arm of his chair. "You’re like my gappa back home," she said.

"You’re what?"

"Gappa, grandpa," she smiled at him.

"Lucy-

"I know," she said before he could tell her he wasn’t her grandfather by any stretch of the imagination.

"Why don’t you want to spend time with William?" Warren asked, it was a real concern. It was hard for him to work with a little girl around all the time. Not like they could find other playmates for her. As per Haytham’s orders everything about her was secret. She was only allowed in the science wing, between Warren and William’s labs. They’d set up a place for her to sleep in one of their spare rooms, and three times a day gave her food. The only people who knew of her existence was himself, William, and William’s assistant Thomas, who seemed to be drunk most of the time and was fairly sure Lucy was just a hallucination.

"Because he’s not you," Lucy said.

He frowned at her, “While that’s flattering, I’m not good with children. William’s much better.”

"No. You don’t understand," Lucy said, very seriously. "It’s just you. I didn’t pick the Assassins. They won’t help me here. You will though. Especially you."

He eyed her, “And how do you know that?”

"Because you do things people don’t," she said and rocked back and forth, chin still in her hands. He had to admit, she was a very carefree child. And also seemed to know exactly what she was doing. "And you work for Haytham, who pushes conflict. I… don’t like him, he’s scary," she frowned and stopped rocking. "If he wasn’t so scary I’d like him more. You’re the second choice-

"Oh lovely," Warren gave her a look.

"Whaaat?"

"A second choice?"

"You’re the one who doesn’t like kids," she stuck his tongue out at him.

He rolled his eyes and sighed, he put his tablet down, he’d be getting no work done now. “What did you mean by pushing conflict?”

"He does stuff. He makes things happen," she said cheerfully. "I’m looking for someone. Someone like me."

"There are more people like you?" Lucy nodded to his question, "Who?"

"I don’t know," Lucy said. "but I know where to look. Or sort of," she pursed her lips.

"Where?"

"Aaaah, not gonna tell you. It’s against the rules."

"Rules? What rules?"

"My parents’," she said. Warren frowned, annoyed. Always with the mysterious parents. They’d finally gotten some cell samples from Lucy, from cheek scrapings, and had found that she her genes came from no Child Bank in the entire continent. They were currently getting Child Bank genes from the Americas, Africa (what little there was there), and Asia. Not Australia though. Australia had been silent for years. Warren had a feeling nothing would match, but William was optimistic.

Since Lucy had come here she’d been unhelpfully helpful. She gave away just enough information to make them interested, but never enough to satisfy. She had no explanation for why her skin was the way it was or why she had a heart that was a bit bigger than normal or why she had the same abilities as Haytham did or why she seemed to know so much about their organization. Or why, in general, she seemed to know so much. Warren had a feeling she knew even more than she was letting on too.

"Who are they?" Warren tried but Lucy just smiled and didn’t answer. She never answered any questions about where she came from or even what she wanted. At most she gave away that Haytham was going to help her. Help her with what Warren had no idea, but Haytham seemed to have an idea. He wasn’t sharing it with Warren or William though. "Heh, of course, closed mouth as always," he huffed at her,

"But mysteries are fun, Warren," she said cheerfully. "Admit it, I intrigue you.”

He eyed her, slightly annoyed, “As a test subject perhaps. Children aren’t people I prefer to deal with.” Though she did let him run whatever test on her he wanted, so long as it wasn’t painful. He and William still had no idea how to break through her skin to run biological tests and they’d recently tried diamond tipped needles. Whatever made her skin that hard was impossible to penetrate. Even Haytham didn’t have skin that reinforced and it’d give under titanium needles.

"Yeah, but you like me," she told him, smiling.

He gave her a look, but didn’t deny it. There was… something nice about having her around. “And what do you want today?” he asked finally because she knew he could only bother him sometimes but when she did she always wanted something, though not to play, she knew he’d never play with her.

"I want to go outside," she stood up and pointed out the window. From the window they could see downtown Paris, the old Eiffel Tower one of the last pre Collapse ancient buildings in the city since the wars had destroyed most of the city and the old architecture in the city.

"Absolutely not," Warren said firmly.

"C’mon Warren. I wanna go out," she pointed more firmly at the window.

"That is completely out of the question. Haytham said you’re to stay inside until he says otherwise. So inside you shall stay." She stuck her tongue out at him and walked away from him in a huff. He watched her go. "And don’t go find Thomas and wait till he’s drunk to ask him," he called after her. She sent him a look and he knew that was exactly what she was going to do.

He called William once she’d left his office, “Hello, Warren, what can I do for you?”

"Lucy wants to go outside. I’ve told her no. But she might try to convince Thomas if he’s infuriated," Warren said.

"Oh dear. Well, Thomas isn’t here at the moment. I’ll keep an eye on him when he’s in."

"Do that, and tell Haytham. Maybe he’d let her out-

William laughed a little, “We both know he won’t,” William said, “He won’t let her out of the science wing.”

Warren sighed, “Worth a shot at any rate.”

"Perhaps. Goodbye," and William hung up.

Warren sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers with a frown. It was very obvious Haytham knew something he and William didn’t. Something about Lucy. But he wasn’t sharing. So that made not knowing anything all the more frustrating. If Haytham just told them what was going on it would make the containment process all the easier. Then they’d know why Lucy had to stay inside. She wasn’t sick, in fact she was incredibly healthy, so she wasn’t a carrier. She wasn’t genetically enhanced in any way they could tell, not like Haytham was at any rate. He couldn’t think of a single reason to keep her locked up other than because Haytham said so.

He looked behind him at the view of Paris. He was going to live to regret this he was sure.

Warren stood up and took off his lab coat, hanging it on the back of his chair. He clicked off his tablet before going to find Lucy.

—

Maelin looked down at her cards, sitting beside her Munahid was looking at her, totally at ease. All men had a tell, but she’d yet to divine Munahid’s. He was a very hard man to read, but Maelin liked the challenge. Especially when playing cards.

"Call," she said in German and added a chip to the little pile on her hospital table.

"Little lady’s got some fangs," Munahid chuckled, also in German. Maelin liked the way he laughed, it was very pleasant.

"One of the genders in Singapore must; and it certainly isn’t the men." That made Munahid laugh properly and she grinned, pleased with herself. It was a bit difficult at times to properly do American humor through the German language when she wasn’t either of those things, but she was proud to have managed it.

"And raise," he added two chips to the pile. They’d been playing poker for the last half hour or so with actual potato chips, whomever won getting to eat them.

"I wish this was over," she sighed and looked at her cards.

She’d been allowed up and about for about a week and a half after the doctors were happy she was healthy enough. But she was coming to term soon and they had brought her back to the hospital for her delivery in case there were any late complications. She’d tried to get them to just take it out or abort it or something but had been denied all of it. She wasn’t well enough to go through either procedures, and the thing inside her wasn’t healthy enough to withstand being transplanted into an AWC. So she was stuck, still pregnant and uncomfortable, until she came to full term.

"They assured you it won’t be long," Munahid said gently and put his cards down a bit as he looked at her. "As it is you’ll probably go into labor early."

"The sooner the better," she declared. She just wanted to not be pregnant. She didn’t want this… this thing inside her any more. As it was she still had trouble sleeping on her own without medication. She had nightmares of men coming into his room late at night and tying her up and raping her. That or giving birth to some monster or insects like in old fairy tales. Maelin was just looking forward to getting rid of this parasite and going home.

"Maelin," she looked at Munahid, confused why he suddenly sounded so concerned. "Everything all right?"

She realized she was crying. Hastily she rubbed her eyes to get rid of them. “I’m fine,” she declared.

Munahid reached over and squeezed her hand, “It’s almost over,” he promised. She looked away, not that she didn’t appreciate his concern but it was just… unfair! She had never asked for this, never wanted this. Why had this happened to her? Wha karma had she reaped to deserve this?

"Not soon enough," she said softly and they both looked up, Munahid pulling his hand away, when there was a knock on the door. A nurse came in.

"Maelin," they said in Korean, "you have a visitor."

Maelin sighed, “All right,” she hoped it wasn’t another member of Alpha. Not that she didn’t like all of them, she did, and not that they weren’t all kind to her, they were, but she missed seeing people familiar to her. The genetic make up of the American fortress was so different from the one in Singapore. Here everyone was olive or brown or even pale with large eyes and every color hair and eyes you could imagine. The fortress in Singapore had people from all over Asia and the Empire and even people from Siberia. They all looked similar with a rather uniform skin tone and face shape and eye and hair color and texture. There was some irregularity from when the Middle Eastern fortress had fallen, but most of them had traveled west to the European and American fortress at that time. But that was only very rarely and for the most part the Middle Eastern genes had just been assimilated and already made ressessive by the numerous interracial mixing. All the faces here were strange to her, and though Munahid’s had become familiar and a welcome sight she just… missed her people.

The door opened, the nurse left and a man walked in. Maelin’s face went slack looking at him. She recognized him instantly, though she hadn’t seen him for some months since she’d left Asia. His eyes weren’t big and round like everyone in the American fortress, rather narrower like hers and black, and his hair was black and fine and messy. He had a earring in one ear and was dressed in the Singapore fortress style of casual wear; a black shirt and camo pants, with boots.

Maelin pushed himself up to a proper sitting position and damn her giant stomach, “Bo!” she cried when she had managed that.

"Maelin," he beamed at her and rushed over to her to embrace her tightly. She hugged him fiercely and after a few seconds admitted to breaking down and crying into his shoulder. He was speaking into her ear but she couldn’t understand him, she was still just crying.

It took her a long time to settle down, and when she did Bo was sitting on her bed next to her, hands on her upper arms. “Hello beautiful,” he told her and it felt so good to hear a native speaker of Korean again and kissed her. She hung onto him desperately before he pulled away and pressed his forehead to hers.

"I missed you so much," she stammered, refusing to cry again.

"I missed you too," he said quietly, "I thought you were dead. The entire fortress got a shock when the Americans called us and told us you were alive."

"Kappa doesn’t die," she said firmly.

He smiled, “You’re the last one,” he told her softly, “No other members of Kappa made it back to Singapore.”

While Maelin had guessed that, her heart hadn’t wanted to believe that. She’d been holding on to the hope that when she got back home members of her family, Kappa, would be there waiting to welcome her home. It was hard to breathe thinking about and she held onto Bo tightly, squeezing his arms so hard it had to hurt. “They’ve already assigned someone to lead the new Kappa platoon. They all fight in the memory of their lost comrades,” and Maelin’s breath hitched miserably.

"And I’m stuck here," she sniffed.

Bo kissed her temple, “You’ll come home soon, tiger” he told her gently. Her sweet Bo was always so gentle with her. Unlike her he didn’t have very many EVs, just the a few, and none that were very useful in the combination he had. He was an admin in the fortress, higher ranked, and worked at a desk with papers and computers. It was so strange someone like Bo, who was so sweet and gentle, wanted someone like her in Kappa who were known for their volatile tendencies and short tempers. But Bo loved her and never made her upset or set her off and turned her into a house cat instead of the tiger he always called her.

"I’m sorry," she said miserably and self consciously touched her full stomach. It wasn’t like they hadn’t had sex before her mission. She suddenly felt so ashamed some Mormon, extremist, rapists, had done to her what they never had. Not that she wanted children. But just that she was able and it had never happened by accident.

"Shhh," he shushed her and hugged her again.

"I’m not keeping it," she said softly, "I can’t-" she almost started crying again. She didn’t know why she was crying so much. The doctor’s said she would experience dramatic mood swings and a full range of extreme emotions, but she hadn’t been expecting so much crying in such a short time.

"Shhh," he cooed and rubbed her back, "It’s okay. You don’t have to explain. You did nothing wrong. I love you," and he kissed her neck.

"Thank you," she whispered, holding tightly to him. Over his shoulder she looked next to her bed where Munahid had been sitting. He was gone, their card game put away, the chips gone. For some reason that made her heart ache. She felt bad Bo had come and interrupted their time. She had nothing to feel bad about she knew, but she couldn’t help it. She turned away from the empty chair back into Bo’s neck and just glad he was holding her. She didn’t want him to ever let her go again and she’d do anything to make sure he didn’t.

—

Rauf laughed a little when he walked into his bedroom, around the half wall, and found not just Altair on his bed taking a nap, but also Sef, Darim, and Desmond. The four boys were spread all across the bed, Sef lying on top of Altair, Darim and Desmond on either side. Desmond’s arm was slightly cock-eyed in the brace but he seemed to be sleeping just fine.

He stood at the foot of the bed and looked down at the four of them. Since Desmond had come here nearly a month ago he’d sort of just fit himself in with them. Sef and Darim had both taken to the idea of having an adoptive brother though Altair had tried to refute that fact saying that Desmond was not his son. After Sef and Darim had started calling Desmond big/little brother he’d just sort of stopped fighting it though, saying it gave him less of a headache.

How in the world Altair had gotten all three boys to take a nap at the same time Rauf had no idea, but judging by the kicked off shoes at the end of the bed and tired looks on their faces it had involved running around and probably some training.

Honestly he was half a mind to just let them stay like that. But Sef had to go back to the nursery and Darim and Desmond both had to go back to the novice halls before it got too late. He’d only seen them all at dinner and then Altair had rounded them all up and gone off leaving Rauf alone. So as much as Rauf wanted to just leave them as they were they all had to get up.

Desmond didn’t even twitch when Rauf knelt on his side of the bed to rub Sef’s back. Sef sniffed and opened his eyes a little, “Baba?” he asked.

"Yes. C’mon," and he dragged Sef off Altair. That caused Altair to wake up with a groan and sit up.

"What’s going on?" Altair asked and Rauf found his momentary sleepiness adorable. It only lasted a few minutes though before he was awake.

"The boys have to go back where they belong," Rauf said, leaning over Desmond to steal a kiss from Altair’s sleepy lips.

"Right," Altair said tiredly and looked down at Darim and shook his son gently. "Wake up bud," he said.

"No," Darim said.

"Yes," Altair looked at Desmond, "You too kid," and he poked Desmond in the chest a bit. Desmond just whined and rolled over to get out of Altair’s range.

"How did you manage to get them all to nap?" Rauf asked.

"Ran them into the ground a few times," Altair said and scratched his jaw where he was starting to show a five o’clock shadow. "They enjoyed it, for the most part."

"I hurt everywhere," Darim complained loudly.

"You liked it," Altair said, unimpressed. "Get up," he added and poked Desmond some more. Sef hadn’t woken up though. He was still out like a light after Rauf had pulled him off Altair, and was currently sleeping against Rauf’s chest.

"I don’t wanna. Stop it," Desmond batted Altair’s hand.

"You get up or when we come back from dropping Sef at the nursery you’re going to have to deal with me an Rauf-

"Ah! No!" both Darim and Desmond jumped out of bed.

"Altair!" Rauf snapped at him and smacked him.

"What?" Altair asked, "I’m not a creep. It got them up though," he said smugly at Darim and Desmond. Darim was a morning person like his dad but Desmond was not and was slow to wake up, even from just a nap. Altair got up and stretched, Rauf admitted to watching the line of his back when he did that, especially when his shirt rode up some and Rauf could see the small of his back. "C’mon boys, put your shoes on," and he shoved his feet into his boots.

"It’s so far though," Darim complained, now realizing he wouldn’t have actually been subjected to Altair and Rauf enjoying each other. "Why can’t we just stay here?"

"Fortress regs," Altair said and dropped Desmond’s sneakers off in front of him. "All novices need to be in their halls by curfew and children in the nursery before a certain time. Only someone with a high enough rank can override that," Altair said, he was now awake and waiting for the boys to get themselves together.

"Like how high?" Darim asked, tying the laces of his sneakers, Desmond was still sleep addled and struggling with his.

"First-class," Altair said.

Darim turned and looked at Rauf, the boy opened his mouth, “No,” Rauf beat him to it. “Not that I don’t love you all. But my bed isn’t big enough for five people, much less Sef who wiggles when he sleeps,” he patted Sef’s back gently.

"Awww," Darim complained.

"C’mon, lets go. Desmond, kid, tie your dang shoes," Altair said.

"I’m trying," Desmond complained. "It’s hard though."

Altair sighed and hunkered down in front of him and died the sneakers up. “C’mon,” and he pulled Desmond to his feet, Desmond went without protest. “You guys can go back to sleep in your rooms,” and Rauf got up, holding Sef, and followed Altair our.

Altair called an elevator and they waited. Darim was awake, but Desmond was about to fall asleep on his feet. He clearly wasn’t used to the rigorous training like Darim was. Desmond was a smart boy, and was on par with all the kids in the third level mentally, but he wasn’t as fit or active. Once he was and his brace was finally removed they’d put him in the third level. Until then he just hung around Alpha and Altair was helping him catch up to the other eleven year olds.

The elevator came and Altair pushed level twenty-five. “Dad,” Darim said as they went down.

"Yeah," Altair asked, one arm around Desmond’s shoulders so he didn’t fall over from exhaustion.

"How come there are rules about where we have to sleep?"

"That’s only while you’re growing up," Altair said, "Once you’ve come home from your pilgrimage you can sleep wherever you want. We sometimes Ehan and Chris in the gym, napping on the equipment."

"No way," Darim said.

"Yes, way," Altair nodded. "It’s to instill discipline, and once you’re an adult and have a job in the fortress there are all sorts of stupid rules you have to follow. Your rules about sleeping are just for obedience, and so that we know where all the kids are," he wrapped his other arm around Darim’s shoulders. "You kids are the most important part of the fortress."

"We are?" Darim asked, wide eyed.

"Yeah. You’re the future of us. Without kids around we die out, like society almost did during the Collapse. So we need to keep an eye on you, which means a curfew while you’re young. Once you’re an adult the rules regulating your movements inside the fortress go away."

"And we get different ones instead?" Darim asked.

"Yes. But they’re still important too. Like Rauf has all sorts of rules of what he can and can’t do to students. Right?" he asked Rauf. Rauf nodded.

"Like what?" Darim asked, looking at Rauf.

"I can’t hit you for starters," Rauf said, "Which is why you’re told if someone does to report them. It’s bad behavior. I also can’t put you in a real life threatening situation, or make you kill anyone. Your first kill comes after your pilgrimage, or even during it."

Darim looked up at Altair, “Did you kill guys during your pilgrimage, dad?” he asked.

Rauf frowned a little as Altair’s face went hard. Altair squeezed Darim’s shoulder, “Yeah,” he said stoneley, “I did,” the elevator dinged and the doors opened. “Now go to bed,” and he ruffled Darim’s hair.

"Night dad, night Rauf."

"Night," Rauf said and the boy left.

Altair pushed the button for the twenty-fourth floor and the doors closed. Rauf held the door  open while Altair walked Desmond ot his room and returned to the elevator. “Here, I’ll take that,” and Rauf was so relieved when Altair took Sef out of his arms. He loved his son, but he was getting so big. Altair could carry him far easier than Rauf could.

"He’s going to start levels soon," Rauf said as they traveled down to floor twenty.

"Yeah," Altair said, "Two years. Then I get to do it again in four," he groaned.

"How much do you worry?"

Altair stroked Sef’s back, “More than they know. Probably more than I should,” Altair admitted.

"You’re going to be a mess when Darim leaves, aren’t you?"

"Ahg, don’t remind me he’s got five years till then," Altair said. "I want… to put it off as long as possible."

"What happened to you was an anomaly, Altair," Rauf reminded him as the elevator opened. "Not everyone suffers like you did."

"I know," Altair said and they walked out into the nursery. Rauf signed Sef back in and they took him to his room. The other children he shared his room with were already sleeping. Sef woke when Altair laid him down and pulled off his shoes and his pants. "Night buddy," Altair told him gently.

"Night daddy," Sef said sleepily, "Night baba," and Altair pulled the blanket over him. He was asleep again in seconds.

"That kid can literally sleep anywhere," Altair said as they walked back through the nursery.

"Just like you then," Rauf teased him. The elevator opened almost immediately when they pressed the button, not having been called to any of the other sixty-five floors it served. "But really Altair," he took Altair’s hand, "Most people have a nice pilgrimage."

"I know," Altair said, looking down. Talking about Altair’s pilgrimage was the only time Rauf ever saw Altair truly soft spoken. By the time he and Altair had met Altair was mostly over it (as far as someone could get over something like that). Darim had been seven when they’d been joined without knowing each other except that Rauf knew he was on Alpha while he’d been on Delta and according to Alpha then was an absolute monster. Rauf was one of the few people who knew all the details about it and why Altair had barely lasted two years out there. Most people took three or four, or even five years, to come home. But not Altair. Rauf was honestly just amazed Altair let anyone in after what had happened to him, even after so much time had passed.

"So you don’t need to worry about Darim when he goes on his," Rauf squeezed his hand, "he’ll have fun for a while, realize society isn’t for him, and come home, just like everyone does." Only a few people never came home. Sometimes they died, overdosing on some drug, or caught in some accident. Mostly they just found something worth more outside to them than inside.

Altair sort of leaned against Rauf as the elevator continued to go up. “I was way too young,” he said, sort of thoughtfully. “We both were,” he frowned. Then he sighed, “Long time ago,” he straightened up, “Too long to dwell.”

"Well at least you know that," Rauf said.

Altair smiled a little, “I do,” he leaned over and kissed him. “Got better things to worry about. More important things.”

"That you do," Rauf said encouragingly. "Alpha, your kids, Desmond-

"Getting you out of those clothes," Altair smirked.

"Altair," Rauf hissed at him, but wasn’t mad. The elevator dinged and Altair pulled him out of the elevator.

"Let me not have to worry about that now, huh?" Altair was still smirking, and pulled Rauf down the hall and into his room, the door closing behind them firmly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder how many people are pissed about my continued teasing of what happened when Altair was young? 
> 
> I have to imagine quite a few of you


	14. Psyche

Altair stared at the skin bot. An android that was perfectly life like. There was no uncanny valley here like there were on some society bots. Halem was completely real except for the fact that he was just a torso and head. Altair could see pores and tiny hairs along his jaw like he’d just shaved, and his hair was perfect and a dull, light, brown. Every inch of him was unassuming and designed to make you feel at ease, relaxed, as he sat behind a desk that was also his central processor.

Altair supposed that knowing all this destroyed the illusion the Order had created with their psyche bots. But Altair couldn’t help but know, he knew a lot of people thought they were real.

“You’ve been very quiet today Altair,” Halem said, his voice as unobtrusive and soothing as his features and his fine, well tailored, suit. Altair shrugged, “Something on your mind?” he asked and blinked.

“Not really,” he said, “I’m just bored.”

“Why?”

“Because Alpha has been off mission for like an entire month. I’m bored. I want to go out, do stuff.”

“And kill people?”

Altair made a face, “If required. I don’t kill unless I have to.”

“You don’t do a lot of things unless you have to,” Halem said.

“I wouldn’t be here for starters,” and Halem smiled at that, advanced enough to know Altair was teasing him. It was easy to forget Halem wasn’t a real person, he appeared to breathe and blinked like a person and had small mannerisms like the movement of a hand or licked his lips. “When can I resume field work?” he asked

“Once I compile your evaluation, perhaps today.”

“Good, because Alpha has been getting anxious too. All my kids want to get out, do something. They hate being in this fucking box in the earth.”

“How are your kids Altair?”

Altair sighed, “Not talking about it again Halem. You know.”

“Usually a father would be happy to talk about them.”

Altair narrowed his eyes at him, “I love my kids, all of them, even Alpha. But I don’t want to talk about them.”

“Not even Haytham? What about Diyari?”

“There’s nothing to talk about. Once Haytham has his evaluation he’ll be back on the field and once Diyari gets his prosthetics so will he. No one on Alpha has died and you can tell the Mentor I’m getting tired of coming here.”

Halem sighed, “Now Altair-

“Tell him if he wants me to come here again he can drag me here himself. I’m done talking to a dummy,” and he got up from his seat knowing Halem couldn’t follow him anyway. 

He shook himself as he left to rid himself of the brief flash of anger he’d just felt for no reason and went and found an elevator. He shouldn’t have taken that out on Halem. It was just a bot, didn’t know any better, it was just doing what it was programmed to do. As he approached the elevators someone came down the hall and stopped at the elevators too. Altair kept his eyes adverted at first, it was usually pretty rude to talk to others around or in an elevator unless you knew them. Then he looked up.

“One?” Altair heard himself say, confused and sort of excited at the same time.

The other man, who wore a business suit that fit the style of society, and a dull golden tie, looked at Altair, “Ah, four,” Giovanni said. “How are you?” and they shook hands, grasping arms tightly in a familiar way.

“I’m One now,” Altair said, sounding almost annoyed but also felt like a stupid kid again. He had participated in no small amount of hero worship involving Giovanni, just like he knew his own Alpha did to him. Giovanni was _the man_ , the best there was. At least he had been. Before Altair had come along at least.

Giovanni chuckled, “You’ll always be four to me,” he grinned and let go. “I heard you’re giving my brother quite a bit of trouble lately.”

“You expect anything less?” Altair grinned wolfishly.

Giovanni laughed, “No. I guess not. How’s that boy of yours doing?”

“Which one?” Altair asked.

“You have more than one? When did that happen?” Giovanni rubbed his chin.

“I have nearly as many as you now,” Altair said, rather proudly actually. Being a parent was very much a status symbol in the fortress, or at least having more than one was.

“Really? Four? When did that happen?”

“No no, just three,” Altair said, “and a half.”

“Do I want to know?” Giovanni asked.

“Ask your brother,” Altair rolled his eyes. “But my boys are good. And so are the A-kids,” he grinned.

“That’s good,” Giovanni nodded, “Six is still your second?”

“Yes,” Altair nodded.

“That’s good, he’s good at it.”

“That’s why he’s my second,” Altair said.

“Yes, I suppose that’s true. Any of them giving you any trouble. I could… straighten them out got you,” and they shared a laugh.

“No no, that’s fine. I don’t need any of them any more scarred then after our trip to Utah.”

Giovanni frowned, “I’m sorry about that,” he said, “You know we had no idea-

“It’s fine,” Altair waved him off, “No one died.”

“Well that’s something at least,” and Altair saw Giovanni get a thousand yard stare briefly, seeing things that had happened back when he was Alpha-one. Altair gave him that moment. “Keep ‘em safe four,” he said.

“I do the best I can,” Altair said, “And what about your kids?” he asked, to lighten the mood, which had suddenly become very heavy.

“One of them just came home, Federico.”

“Am I going to be seeing him any time soon?”

“Possibly. He told me he wants to work in as an admin though-

“Isn’t this the same one you told me spent every monthly allowance he had on junk and drugs?” Altair asked.

Giovanni sighed, “The same. I might press him into Alpha just so you can kick his ass a little- shit,” and they both looked as the elevator they’d wanted to catch departed, they’d completely missed it. Giovanni pressed the call button again.

“I can do that,” Altair grinned.

“Ezio’s out on his pilgrimage, he’s already more useful than his brother,” Giovanni puffed up a bit, “He found us a good asset in California.”

“Really?” Altair said, “Good for him,” he nodded. “Don’t you have a girl and a little one?”

“Ah, yes,” the elevator came then. “Up or down?” he asked Altair.

“Down,” Altair said.

“As am I,” and they got in. Giovanni pressed the button for one of the living floors, Altair the hospital. “Claudia is in her fifth level, and Petruccio…” he trailed off. “He should be in his third,” he said lowly and sighed.

“Why isn’t he?” Altair asked.

“Too small a heart, has respiratory problems and a very weak immune system,” Giovanni adjusted his glasses with another sigh. “He’s still in the nursery.” Altair didn’t ask anymore and they fell into a slightly awkward silence. “Why are you going to the hospital?” Giovanni changed the subject from his sick son.

“One of mine lost part of his arm and his foot. Going to make sure he’s not gone crazy in that place. Also need to pull six off Maelin. He’s rarely left her side and I think it’s starting to become a problem.”

“Maelin, that’s that Assassin from the Asian fortress, right?” he asked.

“Mhm,” Altair nodded, “We found her in Utah. She’s due in a few months but the docs say more like a few weeks because of the treatment she suffered at Mormon hands,” he said.

“Poor girl,” Giovanni said, “No one should suffer a disappointing child,” and Altair knew he was also talking about himself and his sick son. “Tell six I said hello, and give him a hard time for me too,” he added with a grin.

Altair laughed as the elevator glided to a halt, “Yes, sir,” he said and saying it made him feel strangely giddy. Being able to talk to the man he once would have willingly walked through fire and brimstone for made him feel more at ease and at peace than seeing his psychiatrist. Altair exited the elevator. “Bye, One,” he said.

“See you again, Four,” Giovanni smirked as the elevator closed. Altair stood there a second before going into the hospital floor. He signed in, much like he did in the nursery and went to first find Diyari and Jari.

He found his Alphas in Diyari’s room, both of them on Diyari’s bed, laying side by side. The lights were out and the V-screen was on, taking up the entire wall. Some movie Altair had never seen was on. When he closed the door he turned up his night vision a bit to help him see in the partial darkness, he knew the others did as well when he came in.

“Altair?” Jari asked.

“Hey dad,” Diyari was in a much happier, better, spirits than the last time he’d seen the kid.

“Can I turn on the lights and know you two aren’t being inappropriate?” he asked.

Diyari slapped his hand across his face. “We’re in the _hospital!_ ” Jari cried.

Altair chuckled and flicked the lights on, closing his eyes before dialing them back down to normal light vision. A fake shutter rolled up across the window to show the ‘outside’ which were some picturesque woods with a bit of fog clinging to the ground. “I wouldn’t put it past you,” he informed them, “I mean me and Rauf-

“Sir!” they both cried, not needing that sort of information.

Altair laughed, “We never I was just giving you a hard time,” Altair said, still amused and went over to the bed. Diyari had his crippled side against Jari, his bad arm tucked between their bodies like he needed to protect it. Altair sat on the chair next to the bed. “So, how’s it going?” he asked them.

“Fine,” Diyari said.

Altair looked at Jari and rose his brows, expecting the truth. “It has been fine,” he said. “The engineers came the other day and took Diyari’s measurements for his new arm and foot. They should be done in a few weeks.”

“Good,” Altair said.

“One, will you tell the doctors I can leave?” Diyari asked.

“Why?” Altair eyed him, “You’re still hurt kid.”

“I know,” he sighed, “but… I wanna go down to the nursery,” he said pathetically.

“They won’t let you?” Altair asked.

“They said _until_ I’ve finished my physical therapy with my new limbs I’m not allowed to leave. I can’t even get out of here with a wheel chair! My psychiatrist visits me, I can’t even go to the hospital cafe to eat. It’s humiliating and boring,” he groaned. “As a doctor its even more demeaning because I’ve read my own fucking chart. My red and while blood cell count is _fine_. I’m _fine_ except for some soreness in my— my- my am-“ he suddenly cut himself off, unable to fully describe his condition. Altair’s chest ached at looking at his poor medic who right there looked like he was about to burst into tears again. Jari pressed his face to Diyari’s head comfortingly.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Altair said, “At least let you get wheeled around or something, or go down to the nursery.”

Diyari swallowed thickly, keeping his emotions in check because Altair was there. None of his kids wanted to let him down. They all wanted him to think they were strong and capable and without fear and could handle the brutality of their line of work. “R-really?” he asked and swallowed again.

“Yeah,” Altair got up, “For now though you just rest up, okay? No one’s getting your spot,” he promised and put his hand on Diyari’s shoulder.

“Promise?” Diyari asked in a soft, weak, voice.

Altair smiled reassuringly at him, “I only have one eleven,” he told the kid and now Diyari looked like he wanted to cry from relief. He heard Jari whisper, ‘Told you,’ to Diyari.

“Thank you,” Diyari said thickly.

“Don’t thank me. You’ve earned that number all on your own,” Altair squeezed his shoulder, a few tears leaked out of Diyari’s eyes and Altair wiped them away with his other hand. “Get better, and when you’re ready I expect you back on the field.”

“Yes, sir!” Diyari said, smiling now.

“Good. Now, I need to go give Muna a hard time-

Jari blew a raspberry, “Yeah you do. He’s been here about as much as me,” he said.

“I’m aware,” Altair said. “Look after our medic Jari. And I’ll see about telling those doctors about letting you see your baby,” he added to Diyari.

“Thank you, sir,” Diyari said.

“I’ll let you two get back to your movie and make outs, or whatever-

“Altair!” they both yelled at him and he laughed and bid a hasty retreat.

It was a bit more difficult to find Munahid. But he did find his second in the break room with a very pregnant Maelin and another man. They were sitting around the table playing some board game. He knocked on the open door and the three turned, the other man twisting around fully. Another Asian, Altair noted with surprise.

“Altair,” Munahid said, sounding surprised to see him.

“Six, Kappa,” he added to Maelin who seemed glad to hear Altair call her that. “Who’re you?” he asked the new man, switching to Korean just to make his life easier.

“My name is Bo,” he said, his accent similar to Maelin’s.

“Uh-huh,” he looked between Bo and Munahid and then to Maelin, “Well, I need to borrow Muna for a bit,” he said in Korean and saw Bo’s lips twitch in amusement at Altair’s accent no doubt, “You don’t mind, do you?” he asked.

“Of course not,” Maelin said, “Is something wrong?”

“Nope,” he then turned to Munahid, “Get up,” he told his second.

“Uh… why?”

“Because I said so. Get up,” he said more firmly this time, “Bo speak English?”

“No-

“Okay well your girlfriend said I could borrow you, now get up before I drag you out by your ear,” and Munahid flushed but got to his feet, nearly unfooting himself and knocking his chair over. Munahid said something to Maelin in German, and she smiled at him before he followed Altair outside.

“What?” Munahid asked.

Altair looked Munahid over, “Who’s Bo?” he asked. Munahid hesitated, “Well? You’re not going to tell me?”

“He’s admin in the Asian fortress,” Munahid said shortly, “And her partner.”

Altair sighed, “Muna, buddy,” he wrapped an arm around Munahid’s shoulders, “You are climbing the wrong building,” and he led Munahid away from the break room.

“I am well aware thanks,” Munahid said sarcastically.

“So how bad is it?” Altair asked and steered Munahid out of the hospital.

“You care?”

“You’re my second, of course I care about the state of your heart-

“That was lame.”

“Rauf tells me that constantly,” Altair brushed him off, “But he usually appreciates my lame concern anyway.”

 “It’ll go away,” Munahid shrugged and Altair signed out.

“Yeah? Why’d you attach yourself to her anyway? I know I told you to keep an eye on her, but I didn’t think you’d grow attacked,” he called an elevator.

“I don’t know,” Munahid shrugged again and looked like he wanted to get out of Altair’s grip but he kept a tight grip on Munahid’s shoulder.

“Jari told me you’re down here as often as he is. And he’s actually spending time with his partner.”

“Is this an interogation?” Munahid demanded.

“No,” Altair said, “But I need to know if you’re going to have your head on straight when she leaves,” he pushed Munahid into the elevator when it arrived  and pressed the button for floor thirty.

“I will,” Munahid said, “it isn’t like I’m in love with her,” he said rather defensively.”

“Then what are you?” Altair asked, leaning against the side of the elevator.

“Infatuated… I guess,” he said awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck, looking sheepish. “After what happened to her she’s still so strong and I just—“ he shrugged again, helpless about his own infatuation. “But I’m not stupid. I know I don’t have a chance.”

“Did you think you did?”

“… Maybe,” he admitted.

Altair sighed and rubbed his mouth, “Okay,” he said and the elevator dinged and opened onto the top floor of the cafeteria which was adults only and more restaurant style than downstairs. “You know what she’s gonna do with the kid?” he asked as they walked out.

“The doctors… are going to induce a labor in a few weeks if it doesn’t happen naturally,” Munahid said slowly as Altair sat at a table, bigger than the two of them should have had, “they’re worried about both of their health,” he sat opposite Altair. “Once its in an AWC and the doctors have given her a clean bill of health, she’s leaving, without it.”

“Hmm,” Altair said and tapped their table, the menu screen appearing in front of him. He flipped to the last page of it and tapped a few things before swiping it closed again. “And what are you gonna do?”

“Go back to the way I was?” Munahid said, confused. Altair said nothing, just looking at his second. Munahid shifted in his seat, he knew what Altair was getting at, but didn’t want to say. Altair wouldn’t let him be comfortable again until he fessed up. He had a pretty good idea about what his second was going to do but he wasn’t going to ask. If Munahid was going to purposefully not tell him his entire plan like a novice, Altair would make him squirm like one.

Munahid lasted five minutes before confessing, “I was going to put in an application for it.”

“There, that wasn’t so hard was it?”

“Fuck you,” Munahid spat, though not angrily.

Altair chuckled, “But that’s good,” Altair said, “You’d make a good dad, Muna,” he told him.

“You think so?”

“Probably. I mean I wasn’t the best dad candidate in the world and I have _three-_

“Four,” Munahid said, looking off to the side cheekily.

“Don’t you start, bad enough Rauf and the boys treat twelve like that.” Munahid snorted. “Ah, right on time,” Altair said, he was facing the elevator and saw it open, four people spilling out into the floor.

Munahid turned in his chair, “Uhg. Really Altair?”

“Shut up you’ve been cooped up with the Asian girl for nearly three weeks wouldn’t kill you to spent time with Alpha,” Altair said as Kanwai, Haytham, Chris, and Ehan came over to their table.

“Sirs,” Haytham said, the only respectful one of the damn bunch as they all draped themselves onto the extra chairs around the table. Ehan sat next to Munahid.

“Hey six, haven’t seen you in a while,” Chris said with his devil’s grin and brushed his golden fringe out of his eyes with a _way_ too casual to be casual swipe of his hand. Munahid shrugged. “Still dower,” he rolled his eyes and tapped open the menu on the table top, becoming engrossed in the picture menu.

“Don’t order any drinks Chris, I already did,” Altair said.

“Yeah?” Chris looked at him, “What you order old man?”

“One, this old man can still kick your ass, and two, the good stuff,” Altair said pointedly.

“Really?” Altair nodded, opened the menu tab and flicked it over to Chris. “Oh, wow, you actually did,” but Altair was focused away from Chris back to Munahid. He and Ehan were talking in their familiar hushed way they did, heads leaned towards each other. Altair smiled a little. Ehan and Munahid’s faces moved in the same way when they talked, the scars slashed across their cheeks and chins and brows sort of making them look like biological brothers rather than year brothers.

“So boss,” Kanwai said, leaning back in her chair lazily, all of her long, lanky, frame, stretching out like a cat in the sun. “When do we get to have more fun? It’s been almost a month.”

“You already getting restless, girl?” Altair asked her.

“Me and Mira are bored,” Kanwai shrugged, “And we wanna show Ziio what a _normal_ Alpha mission is like. None of that fucking bullshit that happened in Colorado. What a massive waste of time,” she groaned and tipped her head back.

“You wanted to leave twelve there?” Haytham demanded.

“What?” she looked at him, “Hell no. But you _know_ we could have run that mission on our own with better success _and_ he probably wouldn’t have ended up in a cast. Delta with probably also. But all that chaff? Fuck that static. They slowed us down and you weren’t there but some fucking Gamma jerkoff nearly got us _shot_. Thankfully me and Dyran were there to fix it.”

“Dyran?” Haytham asked.

“Delta-two,” she shrugged.

“Since when are you on first names with a Delta?” Haytham asked.

“What? Jealous shrimp?” she taunted him.

“No,” Haytham said too quickly.

“Enough,” Altair said before Kanwai could make another smart remark. “We did as was ordered and everyone got home safe.”

“But Altair-“ Kanwai cut off when a droid showed up at their table with food and drinks. The skin-bots that worked up here were a lower quality than the one Altair had just talked to, but all they had to do was shuttle food up to the second floor of the canteen. When walking they moved with a strange, unnerving, grace that was also jittery, like a movie that skipped every frame. Kanwai leaned back in her seat a little as it set the large platter down, bowed to them, and then left. “I fucking hate those things,” she said viciously and grabbed one of the drinks.

“They have their uses,” Munahid reminded her.

“Yeah including weirding me the hell out,” she drank.

“Unless you want to be the one serving the drinks,” Altair said, “You shouldn’t complain. You know why we have them.”

Kanwai’s lips were thin,” I do,” she agreed and watched as the bot went into a back area. “Doesn’t mean I like ‘em,” she made a face and drank some more.

“When do we get to go back onto the field?” Haytham asked Altair.

“You? I’m not sure. Once they’re happy with your psyche evaluations-“ Haytham groaned miserably, “Us? I don’t know. I hope soon. I’m getting restless as well,” he agreed with Kanwai. Alpha, as a whole, didn’t like waiting around, staying still. They liked to be working.

“At least we agree on somethin’,” Kanwai said. “Also, for the record, I like the new girl.”

“She’s cute,” Chris agreed.

“Chris, you think _everyone_ is cute,” Haytham sighed.

“What? I like people. Unlike you Mr. Hard To Get-

“Just because I’m not sleeping with you doesn’t mean I’m hard to get,” Haytham rolled his eyes at him. 

“Why did you call them here Altair? It’s like five year olds arguing,” Munahid said.

“I just told Alpha we were going for drinks. I didn’t know _this_ particular group of them would show up. I was at least expecting Ehan and Chris, possibly the twins.”

“What? We aren’t good enough?” Kanwai asked, always ready to make something out of anything.

“You’re fine,” Altair said, “Unless you need to give me a reason to take your number?” Kanwai made a face and looked down into her drink. “Besides I thought being with them would help,” he shrugged.

“Help? Help with what?” Ehan asked, the first time he’d spoken aloud at the table, his drink was already mostly gone. Altair honestly had expected Ehan to just sit there in silence the entire time, like he usually did.

“Don’t,” Munahid started.

“Muna’s got a crush on the Asian-

“No way!”

“For real?”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” they all spoke at once and Altair laughed while Munahid sighed.

“Now you’ve done it Altair,” Munahid snapped at him.

Altair grinned and shrugged helplessly, “It’d come out eventually,” he said and now they both sort of focused on the incessant questions coming from Chris, Haytham, and Kanwai, who they’d previously been ignoring. 

The only one not asking anything was Ehan who was just staring at Munahid and it took longer than it should have for Altair to realize the look in Ehan’s eyes. It was hurt. While Munahid continued to tell the others to shut up Altair suddenly felt bad. He really _should_ have realized this before this moment. He hoped he hadn’t fucked anything up.

—

Even during the spring the Australian outback could be hot, today it was like that. It left water-like mirages on the horizon, beckoning to animals or people too exhausted to know, too beat down by the sun to remember. It wasn’t water. Just more dirt, more sand, more scrub land. The sun beat down on the earth despite that it was the middle of winter but Daniel didn’t even notice. He was like a camel, but better. He’d been engineered to survive in one of the most hostile environments in the world, Australian society, which was so secluded and isolated that outsiders were rarely allowed. For him the bush was nothing, he sweat little his bare feet crunching across the dirt and stones without flinching and his eyes were dialed down to deal with the sun. He was made to withstand, and endure. He was made to last.

Ayers rock, where he’d called home for so long, was a pebble on the horizon behind him, a dull purple stone on the edge of the earth. Before him lay the bush, and he had a long walk. One he’d make. Because he was more than those who lived along the coast, a better human, more than human. And he had one goal. 

He wouldn’t rest till he found them. He would walk the earth tirelessly until he found them, knowing they were out there, somewhere, looking for him too. He didn’t know who they were, what they’d look like, what their name was. He just knew he’d know them when he found them, and when he did he could rest.

But he had a long walk ahead of him.


	15. Stress Test

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter I've ever written. 11k long, previously that record was held by Royal Lily of A Lily in the Valley at 10k. My head hurts thinking about this.
> 
> The Ezio parts were paid for by [hirarandom](http://hirarandom.tumblr.com/), these are the last parts she paid for but there will be more in the future. You can find out more about my commissions [here](http://nottheshepardyourelookingfor.tumblr.com/comm).

When the buzzer went off the training sim ended, and the environment melted away, back into clean and white panels. Altair popped the seal on his suit, he was sweating and his hair clung to his forehead. “Good job everyone,” he called to Alpha as they popped the seals on their suits. They were all running unpowered Theta suits, the lightest suits there were since Theta was only a combat squad in theory and were barely more than society riot gear.

Mira groaned and dropped to the ground, right onto her side her legs seeming to give out from under her, “I hate Thetaaaaaaa,” she moaned miserably from the ground. “I haaaaate them.”

“Yeah, fuck these guys,” Kanwai agreed.

“Can we take these off now?” Haytham asked, pulling at some of the armor on his flakes, “These things fucking itch.”

“Do you guys do anything but complain?” Altair asked, helmet under his arm. A Theta helmet looked like a rank and file FRN military helmet and had a sort of gas mask shape to it so it could cover the whole face and seal the person in from foreign contaminate. They were hard to see out of and with only life support running on the suits also difficult to breathe with. “But yes, you can take them off.”

“Thank the god!” Haytham cried and jammed his helmet on long enough to log out. The others did so similarly and soon they were all shucking off the Theta suits and leaving them on the ground so they all stood in the Alpha undersuits. The most top of the line undersuits for the most basic suits. Altair didn’t miss the irony. Standing above the crumpled suits his men looked like they’d just shed an uncomfortable skin for a sleek, new, black one. Altair followed their example, he was glad to get out of the Theta suit as well.

“But really. You all did good,” he told Alpha who were all present except for Diyari. His Alpha-Betas were here too. He had a new one. Federico Auditore had been pushed by Giovanni to at least try out for Alpha. The kid wasn’t happy about it. He stood in the back with Ziio and while Ziio was bright eyed and eager to listen Federico looked sour and annoyed to be here still. Altair would kick him soon. He didn’t like dragging around dead weight. “Anyone learn anything?”

“Theta are a bunch of bitches?” Sally asked, crouching on the balls of her feet. “I mean basic bitches,” she rolled her eyes. “They have no HUD, no internal comms, no silencing. The only thing they got are stupid heavy unpowered suits that make them tired.”

Altair sighed, “I meant for real? Not just complaining,” there was silence. Altair sighed again and pressed his hand over his eyes. “Why do I bother?” he asked himself.

“I learned I’m way too reliant on my suit,” Ehan said, also crouched, his fingers together between his knees. Everyone looked at him. “And that without it I’m probably as good as a Charlie. And that pisses me off,” though he spoke very calmly, Ehan wasn’t one to show emotion about anything, especially anger.

There was an uneasy silence, everyone agreeing with what Ehan had just said, but not wanting to admit they weren’t as good as they were without their suits. “And that’s why we wore the Theta suits,” Altair said. “We’re all too reliant on our own and Alpha-Beta-two pay attention or I will throw you over my knee. Don’t give me that look kid I will do it, I have done it,” he said to the back where Federico wasn’t paying attention, but clearly off in lala land. Federico was looking at him now though. “Good. Now keep your attention here or I’ll make you do a worse exercise than what we just did, and if you do I’ll make everyone do it,” everyone turned and glared at Federico and the kid swallowed. No way he wasn’t going to pay attention now. If he made them do something worse they would make his life as an Alpha-Beta a _living hell_.

“Better,” Altair said, “Now, as I was saying. We’re all too reliant on our suits. Even me and I know my own limitations enough to realize this. It was especially obvious during Utah. When we’re naked we’re vulnerable. We make mistakes because we’re used to being able to fall back on our suits to correct us. When the rest of Alpha came in, suited up, it was complete overkill.”

“Isn’t that good, sir?” Jari asked.

“You blew up the Temple,” Altair said flatly. “We’re Alpha. We are subtle. We are shadows. We’re in and out without anyone knowing we were even there. Utah was a _failure_ on all parts except that we did manage to retrieve Kappa-six. _Utah_ is a piss poor representation of how Alpha _should_ act. So, we’ll be fixing that, starting now.

“Everyone has mandatory unit training until I tell you otherwise. We will run our sims without suits or comms until we can run them where we won’t want them.”

“Yes, sir!” Alpha cried, though he saw some of them looked wary.

“Our reliance won’t be dispelled overnight, we’ll work on it, as a unit. To help us get started I’ve brought in some outside help. They’re teachers and unlike within the squads teach to fight without the help of a suit.”

“Are they an upper instructor?” Chris asked.

“They both are, yes,” Altair nodded and went to the door of the sim room and opened it. “Right on time,” he said to Rauf and Achilles. Achilles taught the tenth level, just before novices went out on their pilgrimage. He was good at finding someone’s strengths and pushing them to the next level, and good at spotting weaknesses and beating it out of them. “These are Master Instructors Rauf al-Naib and Achilles Davenport.”

“Hello sirs,” and Altair grinned, some of his Alpha had _had_ Rauf and Achilles as instructors before. They knew all about them. Not to mention they all knew Rauf was Altair’s partner. Altair wondered if some of them thought it was weird their squad leader was intimate with their old instructor.

Achilles and Rauf stood at the front of the squad, Achilles had a cane, since he was older than anyone in the room by about ten years, and walked with a bit of a limp. But he rarely did any fighting. Mostly he had someone else do that, his classes usually verbal. “Achilles, Rauf, this is Alpha,” Altair said. “Thanks for helping,” he added.

“Of course,” Achilles said, “Not every day we get asked to whip the best unit in the fortress’ ass,” and Rauf snickered.

Altair stepped back and joined Alpha’s ranks, Rauf went and pulled a tablet out from the control podium and brought it back over to Achilles. “We’ve gone over all your files,” he started, but wasn’t looking at them, “And watched your training videos, and gone over your mission logs,” he flicked something across the screen, the entire room shifted and warped around them. It suddenly became very hot and the fake sun seemed very close, there were no clouds in the sudden blue sky. The ground became sand and dirt and it stretched on to infinity in all directions. “You work well together, but you’re all completely uneqiped to deal with missions without the aid of your suits,” he repeated what Altair had said.

“This exercise,” Achilles said, “Is to help us evaluate you further. Its a stress test,” and some of Alpha groaned. “In this test we’re going to see just how far and how long you can go. If you need to stop, you stop. We don’t want anyone feinting. Everyone pair off.”

Altair looked around, Alpha moved to pair with who was their ‘normal’ partner. Altair and Jari were sort of the odd men out since Diyari wasn’t around so they got paired together. The pairs stood together and Rauf looked at them and then his tablet. “Stand in a circle,” he ordered, they did. “Now everyone on the right move two groups over to the left.”

Altair snorted and moved left so that he was now paired with Mira, who smiled at him. Kanwai didn’t look happy to be paired with Chris now though. “Good,” Rauf said, “Now you’ll be working with someone you might not normally work with.”

“You could have just told them that,” Altair threw over his shoulder.

“They would have circumvented it somehow, I know how your kids are,” Rauf said and some of Alpha laughed. Then he tapped the tablet one last time and put the tablet down, clouds started to boil overhead, but they offered no respite from the intense heat that was making everyone sweat in their undersuits. “There is a town ten klicks to the west, and there you’ll find all the supplies you’ll need for the next part of your test. You may only work with your partner and feel free to fight the others, there are only enough supplies for six of you,” he ended.

“Do we have a time limit?” Munahid asked.

“No,” Rauf said, “and this is a long test. You won’t be leaving this room until we’ve finished it.”

“So get going, I’m not getting any younger,” Achilles said.

Altair looked down at Mira, grabbed her hand and walked off. “You know where’s west?” she asked him lowly.

“Yeah, it isn’t this way though,” he said and looked over his shoulder, the Ziio and Jari were following them. “Can you take one of them?” he asked her.

She looked over her shoulder, “Ziio. Jari’s faster than me,” she said and squeezed his hand.

“I can handle Jari,” Altair agreed but they didn’t do anything. The sim room continued to shift around them, altering their perception of space until it looked like they were out of sight of the others. “Fall,” he told her. Mira dropped like she’d hurt herself.

Altair crouched next to her, “What’re they doing?” he asked her, looking at her, she looking past his head.

“Jari’s stopped. Ziio looks worried for me,” she reported and Altair saw her pupils expand and her eyes turned gold, “Jari’s worried too but he thinks its a trap.”

Altair looked and saw Ziio, she was coming towards them. “Is she okay?” she asked Altair.

“Just clumsy,” Mira said with a disarming smile.

Altair stood up slowly, non threateningly, “I don’t think she can keep going though,” he said. “I’m going to tell Achilles and Rauf,” and he started walking back the way they’d come. Right past Ziio without even flinching. Jari was still watching from a further distance.

“Mira trip?” Jari asked him.

“Yeah,” Altair shrugged as he got closer, Jari moved out of his way. Smart kid. Altair turned back to Mira and Ziio, the Beta was crouched next to Mira. Altair signaled to her and he heard Ziio cry out as Mira grabbed Ziio and twisted her around, stunning her. Altair went for Jari. Jari jumped back, so Altair missed. He took another swipe, landed it and sent him sprawling. Altair stalked over to Jari and grabbed him hard by a pressure point. Jari stared up at him before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he went limp.

“You got her?” Altair called back to Mira.

“She’s out,” Mira called back, and started towards him. “I feel bad,” she said.

“Don’t,” Altair said and put his hand on her shoulder when she came over to him. “Just part of the test.”

“Does this mean they failed?” she asked as they started to walk west.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Its an evaluation to see how we deal with stress. Both of them are under a lot without this test,” he frowned.

“For the record,” Mira said, “I like Ziio. She’s nice.”

“And Federico?”

“He’s another Chris,” she rolled her eyes unimpressed, “I don’t need another guy in this squad who stares at my ass in an undersuit.”

“We’ll see how he fits. Now we got ten klicks and no water, so lets cut the chatter.” She nodded to his words and they fell into silence as they double timed it towards the town Rauf had told them about.

—

The town was a welcome sight after an endless scrub land they’d been going through. It was a few buildings, some in better shape than others. There were some people standing around already, he recognized Rauf and Achilles even at this distance.

“Almost there,” Mira said cheerfully, they’d slowed to a walk and she pulled her black hair out of the tail it was in to redo it tighter.

Altair zoomed in on the town. It was always tricky using zoom in a sim room, since distances weren’t what they really were and your brain could get tricked since they couldn’t trick the zoom. Judging by how much he needed to zoom in to get a closer look at Rauf’s face he’d say they were only about a fifty yards from the town in actuality. But they probably had another quarter of a klick to go. “Sarah, Haytham, Federico and Munahid are there already,” Altair said.

“Poor kid,” Mira said, meaning Federico, “Also, we got incoming at our eight,” Altair turned and saw Chris and Kanwai. They saw them, of course, and broke into a double time, quickly heading for them.

“Run,” Altair said.

“In this heat?” she asked.

Altair looked right at her, “Run,” he said and took off. He heard Mira dig in behind him, she quickly past him, running at a full sprint. He didn’t have to turn to know Chris and Kanwai were also running.

He heard them come up on either side of him and they moved to squish him. He jumped stopped and they knocked into each other, stumbling, which gave him enough time to catch back up. He grabbed Chris by the collar of his undersuit and used his forward momentum to send the big man crashing to the ground. Kanwai stopped and put her hands up in fists to fight. She’d drag Chris into the town if she had to, but she wasn’t going to let Altair go without a fight.

They were both panting heavily, sweat dripping and Altair felt damp all over from the heat. He was sitting on Chris’ chest, catching his breath from the run, Chris was stunned and winded, unable to buck to fight back. “You really had to bring in Rauf and Achilles, of all the instructors you picked the worst ones,” Kanwai complained.

“They know what we need,” he groaned and got to his feet, stomping on Chris’ back to kick the air out of him. “Now stop complaining girl and show me what you got,” he leaned back a bit, shoulder facing Kanwai, hands coming up in loose fists.

She bit the inside of her cheek before attacking. Altair blocked a kick to the face, the leg gone before he could grab it and quickly had to block several more kicks. Kanwai didn’t have a powerful upper body like the twins did. She and Mira were his delicate girls on the squad, both slender and petite. Their hands were small and long fingered for what they did, and comparatively soft to the rest of Alpha. They couldn’t damage their hands so both of them practiced mainly kick boxing. And they hit hard. Altair was going to have bruises from this.

Kanwai though didn’t have the power to last, not in this heat, not after a run to catch up with Altair. She jumped back, panting, sagging and tired. And that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that Chris was getting up. The demo man dusted himself off and then headed for Altair. Chris Altair had to worry about, he was big and outweighed Altair in every way including muscles.

Kanwai turned to see Chris, smiled and then looked confused when a small shape flew up from behind Chris. Altair watched, no small amount impressed when Mira wrapped her legs around Chris’ neck and used her momentum to send him crashing into the ground. Mira rolled to her feet next to Altair, poised to fight.

“Good timing,” Altair said.

“Wasn’t going to leave you by yourself, sir,” she said, sweat dripping from her temples. “I’ll deal with Kanwai, make sure he doesn’t get up,” and she advanced on Kanwai, hands down.

Altair circled around the two women to where Chris was. He crouched by his man. “You gonna get up son?” he asked Chris, who was awake.

“I think I bruised a rib, sir. So I don’t think so, unless Kanwai yells at me,” Chris said, sounding tired and rolled onto his back.

“Good. I didn’t want to sit on you again,” he said.

“Tell Rauf I hate him for me, will you?”

Altair chuckled, “I will, son,” he ruffled Chris’ blond hair as they both turned when they heard the first impact. Mira and Kanwai fought the same, for the most part, so they knew how to block each other. Mira had thrown the first kick and Kanwai had kicked it down. “Lets let the girls figure this out,” and he sat next to Chris.

“I’m happy for the show,” Chris said and Altair pushed his head once Chris sat up.

Mira and Kanwai wove around each other, but Kanwai was tired from fighting Altair. He saw her starting to slow down, and Mira managed to land hits more often. Then she kicked Kanwai right in the gut. Kanwai looked at Mira then doubled over a bit and vomited.

Altair jumped to his feet and rushed over to her, Mira got there before him. “You okay?” Mira was asking as Kanwai vomited right onto her own feet.

Once she’d emptied her stomach she looked at the two of them, “Yeah,” she groaned, “Ow,” she added. 

Mira suddenly hugged Kanwai tightly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you throw up.”

“It’s okay,” Kanwai said, though she talked like she didn’t have the energy to fight now. “I just wanna sit down now.”

“Okay,” and Mira let her go. Kanwai took a few steps back and sat on the ground.

“C’mon,” Altair said to Mira, “She’ll be okay,” and as he spoke Chris came over and sat behind Kanwai. Though they sometimes fought and argued Kanwai had no problem leaning against Chris for support after that fight and violent vomiting.

Mira looked one last time at Kanwai, “Sir,” she said and followed after him towards the town.

“That was quite a fight,” Achilles said when they arrived, joining the others. “And you get the advantage for the next part of the test,” he grinned.

“Here,” Rauf handed them both a large bottle of water to share. Altair took a swallow and spit it out.

“Fuck you,” he told them both. It was salt water. Rauf just grinned. Mira took the bottle and had a tiny sip before making a pitiful whining sound. “That’s just mean,” he told Rauf.

“You can drink it,” Rauf said, “There’s salt in it, but its mostly filled with everything you lost from sweating. You just have to decide if you can get past the salty flavor.”

Altair glared at him, “We’re never having sex again,” and then he dragged Mira away and they went and sat with the others who were sitting in some shade, as the clouds weren’t do much to stop the bright light. “So what’s the deal?” he asked the others.

“We’re just waiting for everyone to get here. Once they do we’ll start something else,” Munahid said with a sigh.

“Did you have to bring the two top ranked instructors into this?” Federico asked, frowning at Altair.

They all looked at him, “Yes,” they all said at the same time.

“I’d be insulted if One had anyone else come in to help,” Sarah said tartly.

“But this is torture,” Federico complained.

“Kid, this is what our missions are like,” Munahid said. “They suck. Why are here?”

“My dad made me come,” Federico said.

“Your dad also wanted you to not be a shit head,” Altair said, “And you’re on Alpha till I dismiss you.”

Federico groaned and leaned back, pouting.”

“What are we? A child’s help squad now?” Munahid asked Altair.

“He’s Giovanni’s kid, he told me to kick his ass,” Altair shrugged.

Munahid gave Federico a look, “This scrap is One’s kid? Man the nut fell pretty far from the tree,” and Federico gave him a look.

“Has anyone tried the water?” Mira asked.

“Tried,” Sarah held up their mostly full bottle.

“Same,” Munahid held up theirs.

“I’m thirsty,” Mira complained.

“You know what the next part of the test is?” Altair asked.

“Not a clue,” Munahid shrugged.

Altair frowned and leaned back against the wall. For the most part they waited in silence, Achilles and Rauf had the only real places to sit and were bowed over the tablet on Rauf’s lap working on it together. That probably wasn’t a good thing. Kanwai and Chris joined them eventually and then Ehan and Sally. Half an hour later Jari and Ziio showed up, Ziio sending Mira a dirty look. 

They all got the bottle of salt water and Altair felt at least a little better in watching them try and drink it. Ehan chugged it for about five seconds before his body realized what it was and he threw it back up.

Once everyone was together again, Mira sitting closer to Altair, Rauf and Achilles walked over to them. “Okay, that was pretty good,” Rauf said. “Could have been worse, but it wasn’t terrible. While you’ve been out, getting here, Achilles and I have been making some calls. A bunch of third-class Assassins are on their way here. They’re jobs will be to find you and ‘kill you’ and will have both swords and guns,” Altair made a face.

Rauf continued, “You’ll need to dig in and hide. You can team up with others if you want but you _must_ stay with your random partner,” he said and then looked down at the tablet, he tapped something and a podium appeared. “Everyone put these on,” he ordered, they were suits, though were sim suits. Basically they could look like anything. Alpha stripped out of their undersuits and into the sim suits which were bulkier. Once they were on they turned gray and had a sort of shimmering quality to them.

“These suits,” Achilles said while Rauf was fiddling with something, “will register when you’re shot or when you’re touched with a baton. It will induce pain at about a quarter the normal standard. If you ‘lose a limb’ the suit will lock up.”

 “Altair, Mira, Ehan, Federico, Sarah and Haytham will get an advantage,” Rauf said as another podium came up from the ground. On it were six short rods; knives. “You’ll get a weapon, You may ‘kill’ the third-classes if you get a chance and take their gear. They will be wearing the equivalent of half powered Echo suits,” everyone groaned.

“Please don’t actually hurt them,” Achilles said dully, “We promised them you wouldn’t actually break them,” and that earned a few chuckles.

“Is this all we get?” Haytham asked, testing the knife’s weight. “No other supplies?”

“You six get a head start, there are things in the area. Find them and dig in,” Rauf said and the sky started to get dark as the sun raced towards the horizon and the horizon itself became significantly more cluttered as a young forest sprouted around the town.

“What exactly is the objective?” Altair asked, holding the knife up against the underside of his arm and out of sight. “And when is day break?”

“There is no daybreak,” Rauf said, “And the objective is to stay hidden. We’ll start with a few third-class and as time goes on the numbers will fluctuate.”

“Will you be hunting us?” Altair asked the instructors.

Rauf and Achilles looked at each other, “We may be,” Achilles said. “Not like I can’t kick your ass anyway,” he told Altair.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t,” Altair agreed. “But when does the test end?”

“Once all of Alpha is dead,” Rauf said frankly.

“Harsh,” Jari called from the ground.

“Altair didn’t call us here to be nice,” Achilles said, “He called us here to yank the feet from under you. Any other questions?”

“Can we hunt the third-classes?”  Ehan asked.

“You can. But it’d be ill advised,” Rauf said.

“And what about if they get your partner?” Sally asked.

“If your partner dies, you need to leave them,” Rauf said. They all nodded solemnly. “Any more?” there were no further questions. “Okay,” Rauf tapped the tablet and the sun froze near the horizon, hovering. “You six have until the sun sets to find what you can and hide. Good luck,” he smiled.

Mira looked up at Altair and they walked a few feet away, as did the others, though didn’t leave. They needed to strategize. “Do we take any of them with us?” Mira asked him.

“More people in a group the harder it is to hide,” Altair said.

“But there are safety in numbers,” she said, “More people to hide more people to chase if they find us.”

“We’re all dead anyway,” Altair said, “Might as well make it everyone for themselves.”

Mira licked her lips, “Okay.”

“Lets find the supplies,” and Altair walked off, Mira following, “Judging by the sun we have half an hour to find what we need and hide.”

“Lets find some real water,” Mira said and held up the salt water bottle.

“And some food,” Altair agreed, “we’ll be in this sim for a while, I know that at least.”

“Perpetual night…” Mira said lowly, and frowned. “EVs don’t work well in a sim,” she made a face.

“We’re Alpha,” Altair said and glanced down at her, “We’ll make due.”

“Sir,” she nodded and they turned around a corner, the rest of Alpha and the instructors vanishing from sight.

—

“Hey Malik,” Shaun called from the other side of the room, he had half a dozen screens hovering in front of him, each with something different on them.

“Yeah?” he asked boredly.

“You get that pubrom?” Shaun asked.

“What?”

“The pubrom,” Shaun said, public broadcast message, meaning it was fortress wide. Malik blinked dully at him, he didn’t know, he’d been focused on other stuff. “About Alpha?”

“What pubrom about Alpha?” Malik asked and pushed aside some of his windows and pulled up one with all his messages on it. Hovering near the top was the pubrom with the subject of ‘Alpha Stress Test’.

“Got it?” Shaun asked.

“I got it,” Malik said and leaned back in his chair, dragging the holo screen closer to him, he opened it with a blink and the message expanded.

“You’ll get a kick out of it,” Shaun said with no little amusement before going back to his work.

‘All Third-Class Assassins and above are invited to participate in a currently undergoing stress test involving the Alpha squad to help us evaluate their ability to cope under heavy pressures. Please only respond if you are a 3rd  or above, below 3rd are welcome to watch over freq LCF-85A. This test will probably take place over the next several hours to at max a few days.

If you’re interested, please reply.

First-Class Assassin

Master Instructor

Rauf al-Naib’

“I’m doing this,” Malik said aloud.

“Thought you might,” Shaun said with amusement and Malik looked at him. Shaun had the sim freq pulled up on a screen off to the side. Unlike with cameras the freq showed what it looked like inside the sim room, since cameras weren’t able to reproduce what a sim room looked like to those viewing it from the outside. Malik pushed his chair over to Shaun’s and they sat together, watching the sim, ignoring their work.

Unfortunately it was a pretty boring feed. As it was a stress test most of it wasn’t action. Malik bet it was more interesting doing it than watching it. “Sorry you’re not Third-Class,” Malik said.

“Pffft, yeah right, like I want to dance with Alpha,” Shaun said.

“Well I am,” Malik turned away so he could bring up a keyboard on the holo-deck, which was frosted glass and linked it to his message display. He had a message typed up quickly, not looking at the keyboard of his message screen, but rather the sim freq. He checked it before sending it to make sure it wasn’t misspelled and then gave the sim freq his full attention as some flashes went off.

Shaun panned the camera around to see what was going on, zooming in and knocking out walls. Someone had found some Alphas holed up in a tree and was taking shots at them. “I need to get in on this,” Malik said, watching with interest. Shaun set their perception to view the scene in a morning light, to retain the shadows, but to let them see since the normal view was night and hard to see.

His inbox pinged and he swung away from the sim screen. He opened the message, Shaun wasn’t paying attention. Malik grinned, Rauf had just told him to come whenever he wanted, the sim was nonstop and they wanted to make sure there were people in it at all times to keep the pressure on.

“Do you need me here?” Malik asked Shaun, but he was distracted, he was already shutting down his station.

“I don’t think so,” Shaun said. “I mean we can only stare at the same Delta cam frames for so long before our heads explode,” he chuckled.

“Okay, I’m gonna close out and go up there.”

“Bring me some tea before you go,” Shaun said.

Malik groaned and keyed in a food order from his station. Support could be down here for hours at a time, it was easier if food could just be sent down than to go up to the canteen. He finished closing his station and jumped to his feet to go to the lounge where some techs and support were sitting, relaxing. “You guys see the pubrom?” he asked them.

“You mean about the Alpha sim?” a tech asked, her eye-caps were off and made her look a lot less freaky.

“Yeah,” Malik nodded as he waited impatiently at the dumb waiter to come down with his order

“What Alpha sim?” a support asked, “It was a pubrom? I didn’t see it.”

“You block all your pubroms Chassi,” another support, probably their partner, laughed.

“Oh right,” she said thoughtfully. “Someone put it on the v-screen,” she added.

One of the techs laid her hand on the wall behind her and navigated the menus with a few finger twitches, the entire far wall now showing the sim. The dumb waiter dinged but Malik was more interested in the sim. The tech had a different view than Shaun did and was looking over the shoulder of someone with a sword who was walking through an empty town. The view kept zooming in to stay just above their shoulder. Malik stood there for a few seconds and the dumb waiter buzzed angrily. He turned back to it and grabbed the tea and went back to his room.

“Here,” he told Shaun and handed him his tea, weirdo didn’t take it with anything.

“Thanks,” Shaun said, his screen showed a pair of Alphas crouched behind a chest high wall, and above them was one of the hunters, looking for them. 

“I’ll see you like tomorrow or something,” Malik said.

Shaun turned to him, “Right, see you then mate, go try and kill Altair.” Malik opened his mouth to say he wasn’t going there to kill Altair but Shaun rose his brows at him in a ‘don’t lie to me’ sort of way’. Malik closed his mouth. Shaun gave him a smug smirk, “That’s what I thought. Have fun,” and Shaun turned away from Malik. Muttering to himself Malik left and headed for the elevators.

—

Rauf yawned. They’d been here a while, he was tired. He or Achilles needed to be here monitor the sim and unlike with teenagers where they only ran it for a night this sim could last _days_. Achilles was off sleeping and Rauf had the night shift watching the sim. They’d both postponed their classes for the duration of the sim. Thankfully future tests and training wouldn’t be this intensive. Yeah they might have Alpha run sims that lasted days, but they wouldn’t have to monitor them as closely as this one.

Rauf had the door blocked off by three walls and a ceiling, camouflaged to look like a rock if you got too close to it. He was very tired, he couldn’t imagine what Alpha was feeling like. They’d gotten little to no sleep, as they had to stay alert to avoid being detected. So far Federico, and Ziio were dead, having lasted about seven hours. Not all that surprising, as they were both just Alpha-Betas. The real Alphas were still holding strong and Haytham now had a sword from one of the participants.

He looked up from watching a bunch of screens at once when the outside door opened. His brows went up. “Malik,” he said.

“Hi,” Malik said, “saw the pubrom.”

“Ah yes,” Rauf nodded. “You’re Third-class right?”

“Yes, sir,” he nodded.

Rauf yawned, “Why are you here so late?”

“I took a nap, ate, warmed myself up,” Malik said, “So I can give them a hard time when they’re tired.”

“You’re a bad man,” Rauf said, “I have five guys in there right now,” he added and yawned again. “Sorry, been a long night,” he rubbed his eyes.

“It’s fine,” Malik said and then tore his eyes from the sim to Rauf. “How’re you?” he asked, “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Rauf shrugged, “Been busy. Altair’s home and he’s… a distraction,” and he grinned a little, Malik looked disgusted and Rauf chuckled. “I’m not asking you to like him,” Rauf said with a smirk. He and Altair had been very… busy the past few weeks been back home. They were always like this when Altair was away on a long mission. Altair tended to miss Rauf a lot more than Rauf missed him it seemed though.

Malik still made a face, “Did he tell you about the time I saw him?” he asked carefully.

Rauf frowned, “No. Did he do something? Do I need to yell at him?” he asked.

Malik winced, “Uh… no. He was fine. I— might have been a bit out of line though.”

Rauf sighed, why couldn’t these two just get along? He didn’t understand it. “Well neither of you are hurt or dead so it probably wasn’t that bad. Now, you want to go in there or what?”

“Yeah,” Malik nodded.

“Okay,” he looked down at his tablet and requested the items all participants were given. A podium rose up from the floor with a sim suit and weapons on it. “Put these on,” Rauf said and when Malik hesitated Rauf realized what the problem was. “Oh,” and he tapped another button. Panels rose up around the podium, blocking Rauf or anyone from looking in. He was tired and was easy to forget that not everyone was like Alpha and when you told them to change they stripped down just like that. Rauf admitted he’d liked that part. Everyone on Alpha was hot and he enjoyed seeing Altair naked or half naked whenever he could get the chance.

“You’re wearing an Echo suit,” Rauf told Malik filling out some data. “The baton is a sword, your other weapon is a pistol. When you get hit you’ll feel it just as they will. Your objective is to seek and kill the members of Alpha, though they will be hiding, and doing so very well,” he yawned as he read the prewritten speech. “Try not to hurt them too much and they’ve been warned not to actually kill you but we’ve already sent two people to the hospital after they killed Alpha-Beta-one-

“They’re dead? Seriously?” Malik cut in and Rauf heard him fumbling around to get the sim suit on.

“Yes. She was the second one down. She put one of them into the hospital for their trouble though. Shattered his ulna. She’s currently down there with him trying to make amends for it.” Malik chuckled at that.

“And what about the second injury?”

“Someone got a broken nose for scaring Alpha-four. Altair did that,” he said unthinkingly.

“He broke someone’s nose?” Malik asked and the walls dropped, he was standing in the sim suit, pistol attached to his thigh, baton in his hand loosely.

“Yeah and then apologized after it. He felt so bad he didn’t even take their weapon,” Rauf smiled, really his Altair was a big softy. Felt bad for hurting someone accidentally. Malik frowned at that. “Now, for you though, you aren’t allowed to go after Altair-

“What? Rauf, that’s the entire reason I came down here,” Malik complained.

“I know,” Rauf said with amusement, “But don’t, it wouldn’t be fair.”

“How? Afraid I’ll kick his butt?”

“No,” Rauf said, “but you’d be able to track him too easily,” at Malik’s confused look Rauf elaborated. “You resonate. You’d feel him,” Malik looked disgusted again. Malik rolled his eyes, these two were so insanely childish. “And he’d feel you, and knowing you two, you’d just play cat and mouse the entire time and that isn’t part of the exercise. Its a stress test. I’m directing others to Altair’s area. You stay away from him.”

“What if we just cross paths by accident?” Malik asked, looking upset about having his fun ruined.

“Go the other way,” Rauf said, “If you don’t I’ll have you brought back here. Normally enemies don’t resonate. I can’t have you messing up our test just because you resonate with Altair. Understand?”

Malik made a face, “Yes,” he sighed.

“Good. Have fun,” Rauf said and tapped his tablet, the wall to the sim room opened and Malik walked through and into the dark, as he did his sim suit took on the appearance of an Echo suit, the long baton in his hand becoming a curved sword. Then the wall closed and Rauf was alone again. Idly he checked the time. It was three in the morning. He had three hours left before he could go sleep, and it was still a long night. He leaned against the wall in his chair and wished he was in bed.

—

It was cold, Mira was shivering. Their suits did nothing to help the chill of a cold desert night. She didn’t know how long they’d been in the sim either. There was no moon and the stars didn’t move, it made telling time in here next to impossible.

She and One had found a place to hide in the woods around the town, and maybe get some rest. After that scare that had left her right arm numb for a few hours and got her attacker an accidental broken bone, they’d come here. Climbing a tree was stupid, it made too much noise. Instead they dug into the roots of one of the larger trees and found a natural cavity. Mira knew it wasn’t there by accident. It was there to give them a false sense of safety, at least for the time being.

Mira could fit into the cavity, but One had left her there once her arm had regained some feeling. He’d left a while ago and told her he’d be back. He was going back to their old hiding spot to get what few supplies they’d found, which included some food and real water. 

Mira was pressed up against the back of the shallow cave, shivering, and more than a little afraid, as far from the opening as she could get. She had no problems admitting that she was weak. One had kept her around for the specific reason that she was tech and support in one, on the field. She wasn’t a strong fighter. She wouldn’t have been able to beat Kanwai earlier if Altair hadn’t tired her out first. She relied on surprise to win a fight, otherwise she needed others in Alpha to do the dirty work since she was just strong and fast enough to protect herself.

She wanted One to come back. It seemed like it had been hours since he’d been gone.

She hugged herself tightly, trying not to shiver so much and focused on her surroundings. Her eyes and ears were dialed to night vision with a pale overlay of heat, and her ears were dialed up to hear ten meters around her but not any further. But her shivering was making it hard to focus and she was so tired after the scare and she’d burned through on adrenaline.

There was a noise and she froze, except for her twitching from the cold. She listened very carefully and after a moment knew it wasn’t One. She knew his footfalls, that wasn’t what he sounded like. That wasn’t what _any_ of Alpha sounded like. It was someone looking for them. She held very still and tried to not even breathe. She turned her head, tracking the sounds around her and the feet stopped a few feet from the entrance of her cave.

She clutched the knife in her hand and knew she’d only get one chance if they attacked her. She was a big fish in a very little pond here, waiting to get gobbled up by a predator without One here. She really did hope she was wrong though and that it was One The feet shuffled and then a helmeted head appeared at the entrance of her cave.

It wasn’t One.

They stared at each other a moment and then they dropped down into the cave. Mira froze, suddenly terrified. She wasn’t good at this Alpha thing without someone else in Alpha around. They bent down to crouch, and then stopped and stood back up, she leaned forward fearfully and saw them looking at something she couldn’t see.

They yelped and were dragged out of the hole. Mira’s heart leapt into her throat and she heard a fight break out. There were sounds of metal scraping and some grunting as well as the sound of punches. Mira hung back when the sound abruptly stopped and she heard feet walking away. She sat there, holding the knife out in front of her as the feet approached and she was too wired to pay attention to what they sounded like.

The same pair of boots dropped into the hole and bent down. She didn’t think this time and just flew at them. If One was gone than she had to handle this herself.

They caught her wrists easily. “Easy there girl,” One said and she froze.

“One?” she asked shakily.

“Yeah, me,” he said roughly, sounding winded, still holding her wrists tightly. “You still gonna use that thing?” he asked her about the knife, she shook her head and he let go of her hands. She hugged him. “It’s all right,” he said lowly and held her, though they were speaking in whispers.

“I was really scared,” she admitted, sort of shamefully. Alpha was supposed to feel no fear, especially in front of One. She let him go, “What took you?”

“I ran into some trouble. Don’t worry, I’m fine. I’ll be right back,” and then he climbed back out of the hole. Mira retreated to the far wall and sat. One came back a few minutes later and dropped into the hole with a grunt. “I found some stuff too,” he said and put something over the opening.

“What is that?”

“Camo,” One said and had to basically crawl to fit in the space, which was now cramped with him in it. “Blocks out thermals and blends into the floor.”

“Do you know what time it is?” she asked him.

“No. Internal clock says its been over six hours though. There’s just a few people out looking for us, must be really early. So we should get some sleep if we can, before the fortress wakes up and more people come.”

“Okay,” she nodded mechanically, and realized she was shivering again.

“C’mere,” and he wrapped an arm around her, she went and snuggled up against him. One was big, and warm. She still shivered, but less so now.

“How long you think the sim’ll run?” she asked quietly.

“Few days,” One said, “No one wants to be the last one dead.”

Mira frowned, “A few days of night, I’m not looking forward to it.”

One chuckled lowly, “Yeah, me neither. Though really, we should get some rest. Tomorrow’s going to be another day.”

“You going to keep watch?” she asked.

“I have this thing programmed to go off if anything comes within five yards of this place,” One said, “it’ll wake me up. So try and get some sleep.”

“Okay,” she said softly and leaned against him heavily, his protective arm around her comforting. She fell asleep eventually, though kept one ear open for anything. Nothing came.

—

Diyari had the entire far wall of his hospital room showing the sim room. He’d been following Jari since the pubrom had come in and just kept the sim camera a few feet back. His doctors had told him not to watch it, because it would stress him out, but he’d ignored them. He wanted to watch Jari since he wasn’t here with him.

He’d fallen asleep last night with it on and when he woke up the camera was where he’d left it, hovering at the other end of the room Jari was hiding in. He’d stayed up long enough to watch Ziio get killed after she broke someone’s arm and Jari go find somewhere else to hide, but he hadn’t managed past that. 

He was still so weak and got tired easily. His arm and foot still hurt, or at least his fingers and toes hurt, even though they weren’t actually even there anymore. They still hurt all the same, a dull throbbing ache that was lessened when Jari was around. His presence was like a shot of painkillers.

Diyari smiled when he could finally focus on Jari after crawling out of bed and used a crutch (clumsily) to hop to the bathroom to relieve himself. Jari was curled up on the floor, sleeping like a baby. “Oh Jari… people are watching,” he sighed, since Jari was sucking his thumb.

Diyari just watched Jari sleep for a little while before a nurse came in with some food and his medication. “Still watching that?” she asked.

“Well, yeah,” Diyari said, slightly offended.

The nurse looked at the v-screen, “Who’s that?” she asked.

Diyari blinked at them, “You don’t know?” Diyari asked.

“Should I?” they asked.

“He’s only here every day,” Diyari huffed.

They blinked, “ _That’s_ Jari?” they asked, stunned, Diyari gave them a look like ‘of course it is!’ How did they _not_ know that was Jari. It wasn’t like this was a new nurse. This was the same nurse he had every other morning. “Not for nothing man, but your man’s a baby.”

“He does it to not grind his teeth,” Diyari rolled his eyes.

“Also I didn’t know he filled out a suit so good,” they edited Diyari’s feed to show the visual without the sim overlay. It showed Jari now in a dim lit, white walled, room, in the practically skin-tight, sim suit. “Tell him to wear clothes that fit him I swear to the God this is a crime against nature,” she declared. Diyari laughed. “What?” she asked, looking at him.

“Nothing,” Diyari smiled, “my boyfriend’s just really hot,” he agreed. “Now put it back, please,” he said and she put the sim overlay back on. “Can I go to the canteen for lunch?” he asked her hopefully.

“Eat your breakfast. I’ll talk with your doctor about it,” he sighed, “Alpha-one just said to let you go down to the nursery, he didn’t say anything about the canteen,” she reminded him.

“I know,” he sighed.

“Any pain?” she asked him as she checked his machines.

“Not really. Just some phantom pain that you can’t really do anything for,” he gave her a lop sided look.

“What’s it feel like?”

“Just an ache, like I slept on them funny,” Diyari shrugged. “I know there isn’t much you can do about phantom pains.”

She frowned, “Unfortunately no,” she said, “Once you get your prosthetics though they should lessen, or even vanish, since you’ll actually be able to feel the limbs again.” Diyari nodded woodenly.

“Shit,” he looked away from the nurse in time to see Jari scramble to his feet as someone shot at him. Diyari knew the bullets weren’t real, but he still felt his heart jump into his throat. One of his machines started to beat.

“Stop that,” his nurse said, “This is why we told you not to watch this.”

“I’m fine,” Diyari told her, but kept watching the wall. “I’m just exercising my heart,” and then he flashed her a charming smirk.

She rolled her eyes but was clearly charmed, “Don’t push yourself too much. If you take it easy with this I’ll let you go out for lunch.”

“Really?” he looked at her hopefully and she nodded. “Okay, I’ll relax,” he promised.

“Okay, I’ll come back around lunch,” and then she left the room.

Diyari focused back on the v-screen as the camera followed Jari as he ran from the person shooting at him. “Oh c’mon,” Diyari murmured, “Fight back,” and then Jari stopped running at an intersection and stood there, waiting. Diyari knew it was a trap, but his attacker seemed too keen on their target to realize they’d been caught. They crossed the intersection and from either side came Chris and Kanwai, flying at them and knocking them to the ground. Diyari clapped at that and cheered a little.

Chris picked up who’d chased Jari and they went into a building where poked their chest to unfreeze the suit. The man stood up. There was some bickering in the Alpha signs where Chris, Kanwai, and Jari argued over who got the Echo suit. Diyari didn’t turn on the thermal read so he only could read the gist of the conversation.

Then Chris’ sim suit shimmered and turned into the Echo suit. Jari picked up the man’s sword, and Kanwai got the gun. Diyari smiled, glad they’d worked it out. While he’d been asleep they must have met up, since he Jari had been alone up till now.

Diyari watched for a while, ate his breakfast like a good boy, and relaxed. Jari was with Chris and Kanwai now and they were working together. That was good. Though it seemed like every twenty minutes one of them had to give Chris the stink eye about staring at their asses. Even in a situation like this Chris couldn’t actually help himself. What a fucking idiot.

A few hours later there was a tentative knock on the door. “Yeah?” he called and the door was pushed open sort of shyly. Diyari leaned forward to see who it was. “Twelve!” he cried in surprise. “Hey buddy, what are you doing here?”

“I got my cast off today,” Desmond said, “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” Diyari beckoned and Desmond came in and walked over to the bed. The kid didn’t stare at Diyari’s missing side, so that was good.

“What are you watching?” Desmond asked as he stood by the edge of the bed and looked at the wall.

“Alpha’s doing a sim,” Diyari explained, “No suits, high pressure, till they’re killed.”

Desmond gave him a startled looked, “They’re going to die?” he asked, his voice going up an octave.

Diyari laughed, “No no, not really dying,” he promised. “Fake dying. It just means they’re out of the sim. Don’t worry, they’re all fine.”

“Even Altair?” Desmond asked.

“Yes, even Altair,” Diyari promised. Desmond didn’t look convinced. “Want to see him for yourself?” Desmond nodded. Diyari put his hand on the controller and shifted the camera. It panned away from Jari, Kanwai, and Chris who were arguing about something anyway, and raced to look at the forest. It zoomed in and the trees faded out and you could see into a hollowed out area under a tree.

Altair and Mira were sitting in the little cave, Mira curled up against Altair’s side. He was wearing an Echo suit, a sword across his lap. They weren’t moving but when Diyari turned up the light level he saw Mira’s eyes were open. They were awake. “See, he’s fine.”

“Mira looks scared,” Desmond said with a frown.

“Yeah,” Diyari agreed. Poor Mira. She was the weakest of them. It wasn’t her fault of course, but she was.

“Will she be okay?” Desmond asked.

“Altair’s with her,” Diyari said, “She’ll be fine.”

Desmond frowned, “They really won’t get hurt?” he asked.

“Maybe a few lumps, but that’s all,” Diyari said. Desmond looked back at the v-screen, though still looked unconvinced. “Hey,” Diyari said, pulling Desmond’s attention back to him, “Want to go down to the nursery with me?” he asked.

Desmond blinked at him, “Why would you go to the nursery?” he asked, confused.

“I got a kid, why else?”

Desmond puffed out his cheeks, still looking confused, “You have a kid? With who?”

“Jari…

Desmond blinked, his face relaxing, “Really?” he asked.

“Yeah, kid. Didn’t you know?”

“No! No one tells me anything,” Desmond pouted and folded his arms stubbornly.

Diyari chuckled, “Well you wanna come?”

“Sure,” Desmond nodded.

“Okay, bring that wheel chair over here for me would you,” he motioned to the wheel chair shoved into the corner. They wouldn’t let him leave on crutches but Diyari needed to get out sometimes. Desmond wheeled the chair over and with a grunt Diyari lifted himself up and wobbled a little on his one leg before sitting again in the chair.

“Are they going to grow you new limbs?” Desmond asked Diyari, looking down at Diyari’s severed foot, which he was a lot less self conscious about than his arm. He then looked up at Diyari with curious eyes.

“No. They’re going to build me one,” Diyari said.

Desmond made a face, “Growing ones seem easier,” he said.

“Well you can’t grow limbs back,” Diyari said.

“You can’t?” Desmond asked, staring at Diyari.

“No.”

“But one of my parents had an infection. He wanted to see what would happen if he let it happen and they had to cut it off. Then he got a new one, that they grew,” Desmond said.

While Diyari understood all the words coming out of Desmond’s mouth they didn’t seem to make a lot of sense in the order he was saying them in. “He probably just got a prosthetic,” Diyari said.

“No. They grew him a new lower leg,” Desmond said, sounding very sure of himself.

Diyari just let it go, there was no use arguing with a child. “Whatever you say Desmond,” he said.

“I’m serious. They really did grow him a new leg. Can’t the Assassins just grow you a new foot and arm?”

“No,” Diyari said, “I wish they could. But they can’t.”

Desmond made a face and folded his arms over his chest, “That’s stupid,” he declared.

“Yeah, it is,” Diyari said and pushed the wheel chair controls forward. “Open the door kid, lets get out of here,” he looked at the v-screen as they left, Altair and Mira hadn’t moved from their positions.

They went down the hall to the front desk, “-you sure you haven’t seen him? I took my eyes off him for just a minute,” someone was saying as they walked past.

“I’m sure, sir. He hasn’t come through here.”

Diyari pushed the button for the elevator and turned the chair around so he could back into it. “Is that yours?” Desmond asked him.

“No, I’m just borrowing it till I get my new limbs,” Diyari said.

“Oh. But you said the Assassins weren’t growing you new limbs.”

“They aren’t. I’m getting augmented, cybernetic, prosthetics,” Diyari said. “I’m gonna be a cyborg-

“Desmond!” they both looked at the voice and Diyari was surprised to see it belonged to Rauf who’d been at the front counter. The man marched over to them and grabbed Desmond’s ear. The boy yelp as Rauf twisted it. “Where did you wander off to young man? I told you to wait until I’d finished talking to the doctor.”

“Sorry, I got bored!” Desmond whined, “And I wanted to see Diyari.”

“Don’t wander off next time. Do you want me to tell Altair we lost you _again_? He’d be very angry with you.”

“Sorry sorry! Will you let go now? That really hurts!” and Diyari could hear the start of tears in his voice.

Rauf released him and the elevator dinged and opened, “Hello Diyari,” Rauf said, “I hope he wasn’t bothering you,” he apologized as Desmond rubbed his ear, blinking to not cry from the pain.

“Not at all,” Diyari said, rolling half of the wheelchair back into the elevator so it wouldn’t close. “We were just going down to the nursery,” he added. “Unless… he’s not allowed?”

Rauf looked down at Desmond, who was staring at the floor. “You’re sure? I don’t want him to tire you out,” Rauf said.

“Rauf, I’m not sick. Honestly I could use with a little more excitement after being confined to the hospital for the past few weeks,” he complained.

“Please Rauf,” Desmond looked up at Rauf pleadingly.

Rauf looked between Desmond and Diyari and Diyari have him his most trustworthy smile. “Okay,” he said, “I was going to see Sef anyway. Let me call us a better elevator,” and Diyari rolled out from the elevator as Rauf called one of the fortress wide ones.

“How’s the sim?” Diyari asked.

“Good. Only Ziio and Federico are down,” Rauf said.

“I saw the Ziio thing. Very exciting,” he nodded.

“Achilles is watching it right now, so I don’t know if anyone has gone down since,” Rauf said and the elevator came. The higher ranked you were the higher priority you were and thus the faster they came.

“Jari’s still in,” Diyari said proudly.

Rauf smiled, “Lets hope it stays that way huh?” Rauf asked. “Though I hope you realize we’re going to really push them hard,” he added.

“Yeah,” Diyari made a face. “But that’s what you do, right?”

“Yeap,” Rauf nodded, “It wouldn’t be a stress test if we didn’t.”

“Sort of glad I’m lame,” Diyari said cheerfully.

Rauf chuckled, “Your stress test is your physical therapy,” he told Diyari. Diyari sucked in a deep breath and then nodded slowly.

“Are you going to see Sef?” Desmond asked Rauf.

“Yeah,” Rauf nodded. “Wanna come see him with me?”

“After I go see Diyari’s baby,” Desmond said matter of factly.

“Okay,” Rauf said and ruffled Desmond’s hair. “And now that you’re out of that cast you can start your levels.

“Okay!” Desmond said brightly and beamed, “Then I get to learn to be cool like Altair right?” he asked expectantly.

“Well, maybe not _that_ cool,” Diyari said, “Cause Altair’s pretty cool.”

“I’ll be cooler,” Desmond proclaimed.

Diyari snorted, “Whatever you say kid,” Diyari grinned at him.

“I will be,” he insisted.

“Okay. I can’t wait to see you do that,” Diyari said, being completely serious. It wasn’t like Desmond wasn’t already from another planet as it was. Who knew what the hell he’d be like all grown up. He knew some of Alpha was taking bets on how he’d do in his levels. The current thought was that he’d struggle because he was way too happy and cheerful and didn’t seem to like violence. Diyari just wanted to see what he’d do. And if he said he’d be as cool as Altair, well, Diyari couldn’t really say he wouldn’t be.

—

Salai was laying on him, again. Well rather laying on Ezio's lap looking up at him with his ice blue dog eyes. "Don't you have anything better to do?" he asked the dog, Salai just whined and wagged his tail a little.

"Ezio if you don't pay attention you're going to lose," Clay said, watching the screen.

"I'm going to lose anyway," Ezio said, "I can't drive," two weeks since Ezio had told Leo how to get in contact with the Order and a huge sum of money, far more than Leo ever thought he'd get, had been wired to his bank account. Of course there was no way to make the engine yet but the Order had commissioned Leo to make the technology that could. They'd pay Leo a monthly stipend much like Ezio's allowance to help with his research.

One of the first things Leo had done with the money was buy Clay things. New clothes, new shoes, new stuff, and a Gearbox four-thirty- a gaming system- with games. Ezio had no idea what a Gearbox even was, all he knew was he was horrible at it. They were currently playing a racing game and Ezio had never driven anything in his life. You only got vehicle training if you didn't pick it up during your pilgrimage when you got home.

"Well at least don't let the bots lap you," Clay giggled. Ezio groaned.

"It'd probably be easier if I didn't have this big not-lapdog on my daa- lap," Leo didn't swear around Clay and always gave Ezio dirty looks when he did. So he just didn't.

"Salai," the dog's ears perked up at the sound of his name, "Go to bed," and Ezio squawked as the dog got up, walked all over his lap and went to his kennel by the wall which had a soft pillow bottom. "There you go."

"Doubtful that'll show improvement," Ezio grumbled.

"Wanna play something else then?" Clay asked.

"I guess," and was just happy Clay turned off the damn racing game. He never wanted to race again. With an ease Ezio didn't understand Clay used the controller to navigate the menu screens.

"This one?" Clay asked.

"What is it?"

"A war game," and Ezio stared at him. They had war games? Most of the world was pretty peaceful the militaries just around to show off and deter attacks mainly. "Its about the Collapse," Clay said.

Ezio felt a macabre sense of curiosity. He was a soldier sure, and had run simulations and trained for ten years to be what he was but it was always under the idea that one day this would be important for him to know. This game was just that, a game, and wouldn't prepare Clay for anything. "Sure," he said.

Clay brought the game up, "You're not one of those guys who gets are weird about guns like Leo right?" Clay asked.

"No," Ezio knew how to shoot guns, very well. One of the few militaries in the world who actually trained their entire body in guns and not just an elite force.

"Okay good. Leo doesn't know I bought this game."

"Leo doesn't like guns?"

"He doesn't like violence, and is very anti gun and didn't want me to play it," Clay rubbed his eye, "I think its dumb. I mean, they aren't real guns," and the way Clay said it made Ezio think that yes, he had held a real gun before.

"To get off the subject of guns," Ezio said as the start screen came up, showing the old capital of the United States in all its glory, a large white obelisk on one side of a strip of grass and a big domed building on the other, before the war had seen the entire place nuked. Five hundred years late you still couldn't get close to the place it was so radiated from nuclear fallout. "Where's your mom?"

Clay looked at him with a face, "I don't have a mom," he said.

"Everyone has a mom. I mean I know we all come from AWCs but everyone still has a mom."

"I don't."

Ezio frowned at him as Clay started a local multiplayer game, "So what? Did Leo just get a donor for your other half?"

Clay blinked at him, "Leo isn't my dad," he said, sounding slightly offended.

"What? I thought he was," Ezio said, surprised and missed the start of the match.

"Nope. We aren't related," and then Clay explained the controls to Ezio. This he found easier than the racing game. In fact it was almost easy. Ezio knew how to 'play' war better than Clay who had a civilian mind about how war happened. Ezio approached it like the soldier he was would. While he lost the first round that was just him getting used to it. Clay didn't kill him once the next time. "You're good at this," Clay said, "I didn't even know you could play like that."

"Like what?"

"All sneaky like that. I always see people running and gunning in this game."

"Eh-

The front door opened and Clay hastily exited the game as Leo came home. "Clay, I'm home," Leo called.

"Welcome home," Clay answered and twisted around to look at him, Ezio did as well.

"Oh, Ezio, you're here too?"

"Yeaaah, nothing to do at my place but sleep. So decided to come bother you," Ezio grinned.

"Keeping Clay out of trouble more like," Leo said. "You any good at those things?"

"Not in the slightest," Ezio pushed himself to his feet and went over to Leo, leaving Clay to play by himself.

"Me neither," Leo made a face.

Ezio glanced back at Clay and then asked kinda lowly, "Hey Leo, if you don't mind me asking, what happened to Clay's parents?"

Leo looked startled, "Excuse me?"

"Clay told me you aren't related, and I'm just... curious," because adoptions were rare and usually only happened if both parents died. All people who wanted a child had to prove that yes, they did want it, even if they just got a donor for their other half. Apparently it had been a problem before the Collapse, so many unwanted children. In their time no child was unwanted.

Leo nodded towards his work room and Ezio followed him to it. Leo leaned against the door once he closed it and looked at his feet a moment before looking back up at Ezio. "I sort of... found him," Leo admitted.

"You found him?" what did that even mean.

"About a year ago I went to South America for a job," why the hell he'd go there otherwise was a mystery, there was pretty much nothing in South America, mainly just large, empty, countries whose main population was jungle. "I took a detour at some point because I wanted to see some of the really ancient ruins. Like places that were ruins before the Collapse. Not many people go to them and I just... found him wandering around without any shoes on. When he saw me he kinda latched onto me."

"And you just took him in?" Leo nodded, "Why?"

Leo looked conflicted a moment, "He's different," he said slowly. "The kind of different people would be afraid of."

"What do you mean?" Ezio asked.

"Don't worry about it. I don't want to freak you out. But Clay's just... different and he wants to be with me. He said he was looking for me when I found him. He even knew my name."

Ezio was starting to feel uneasy. What had he gotten himself into here? "I see," he said.

"He's still just a kid. You don't need to worry about him," Leo promised. "But you asked, so... that's why we're together."

"Okay," Ezio said and wondered if this counted as something important to tell the Order. He didn't think so honestly. "So how's work?" he changed subject, mainly because he didn't want to think about Clay anymore. But now he knew why the kid sometimes made him feel uneasy, or at least now he had maybe some explanation to it. There was something off about the kid and at the same time Ezio wanted to know what it was he really really didn't. He listened to Leo babble about this and that and half listened. He kept thinking about Clay. That probably wasn't the best idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic reached 100k with this chapter. I think that in itself deserves some recognition especially since I'm maybe like... not even a 4th of the way in OTL


	16. Friendly Enemies

When Tazim got into his class he noticed something was off instantly, and he wasn’t the only one. A boy he’d never seen before was sitting on the ground with the rest of the class while their instructor stood at the podium waiting for the class to come in.

The strange boy was sitting by himself, a noticeable gap around him and the rest of the level. No one knew what to make of the other kid as they’d all grown up together and it wasn’t like new children just sprung up out of nothing, Tazim was old enough to know that. He had brown hair and a nose and ears that were too big for his face and he was rather small.

Tazim sat next to Alberro, sitting on his thighs. “Who’s that?” Tazim asked his age mate, looking at the new boy.

“No idea,” Alberro said, everyone was and wasn’t looking at the strange new kid and very much talking about him though too low to hear without an EV to hear it.

Before Tazim could say anything more though the room’s door sealed shut and the classroom changed rapidly into a rather compact room with foliage hanging down outside the windows. “Everyone,” their instructor, Alie, said, “I’m sure you’ve all noticed we have a new addition to the class today. His name is Desmond and will be with you from now on. I expect you all to be as nice to him as you are to each other.” And that was all Alie said on the matter. “Now everyone get a tablet, as we’re going to start class,” and Tazim hopped up with the others and went to a cabinet that had appeared.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Desmond follow a second behind, not knowing what to do, but following their example. Tazim pulled two tablets from the cabinet while everyone tried to find the one they liked and wasn’t the one Jeffin had thrown up on last week. He went over to Desmond, who looked slightly overwhelmed. “Here,” he handed one of the tablets to Desmond.

“Thanks,” Desmond said, he looked at it, “How do I turn it on?” he asked.

“Thumb print,” and then Tazim left him to figure it out and went to sit back down next to Alberro. Tazim could be nice, but he didn’t know the kid, and it’d take a while for the age class to warm up to Desmond. You didn’t just throw a new kid into a class of children who’d known each other for eleven years.

Tazim watched Desmond go up to Instructor Alie and say something, she looked really confused for a moment and then he showed her the bottom of his hand. He was too far away to hear what they were saying though. Then Alie let the tablet scan her finger and told Desmond to go sit back down. Desmond sat but Tazim was watching Alie. Why would she scan her finger? You were supposed to unlock your own tablet and not ask the teacher for help. Maybe Desmond was just stupid and didn’t know how to work a tablet.

Desmond went out of his mind when Alie started teaching. The mornings were usually filled with academics, like math, science, history, English, and then the foreign language they chose. Tazim’s second language was Chinese, his father told him it was a good one to know. It was as useful as English since outside of America and Europe most of the East spoke Chinese or Korean.

Tazim noticed that during lessons Desmond didn’t speak, and didn’t take any notes like the rest of them. He didn’t answer any of the questions Alie asked and didn’t ask any. He just sat there for the most part, looking very bored. For some reason that really annoyed Tazim, and judging by some of the faces of his age mates, it annoyed them too.

Lunch was coming up, and their second language was right before it. Finally Desmond said something. “Instructor,” he asked, raising his hand a little.

“Yes, Desmond?” she said, standing at her podium.

“If I already know the other major languages can I go to lunch early?” he asked. The class giggled, Tazim himself snickered.

Alie cocked her head to the side, “Do you _know_ the five major languages?” she asked him.

“Yes,” Desmond said, “And others,” he said it in a way that wasn’t really boasting, more that he was just informing them that yes, he knew many languages. 

“Then pick a language you don’t know,” Alie said.

“But then that’d be a dead or extinct language and I already know like eight of those,” Desmond said, starting to look frustrated.

Alie frowned at him, “Everyone go do your lessons, you won’t be leaving for lunch until they’re done,” she told the class. Tazim frowned even as he got up to join the others who were learning Chinese as well. He glanced at Desmond who wasn’t moving, and looking annoyed.

“What’s with the new kid?” Fast -Tazim still couldn’t believe Fast’s parents had named him that- asked.

“No idea,” Eran said with a shrug. The three of them were learning Chinese, the others in the class were doing the other languages. Apparently by the tenth level you were expected to know three of the five. Tazim wasn’t looking forward to it. Chinese was hard, even though he’d been working on it since he’d started levels at eight.

Fast put his tablet in the middle of their little group and their Chinese instructor’s face appeared. “Hello everyone,” they said.

 _“Hello, instructor Min_ ,” they replied in Chinese. Tazim looked up when someone suddenly joined them. It was Desmond, he looked annoyed and moody now as he crouched flat footed next to him.

“Who’s this?” Min asked.

“ _My name is Desmond_ ,” Desmond said, his Chinese smooth and he sounded like Min actually, _“I know Chinese already but my instructor doesn’t believe me. So here I am_.”

“ _Hello then Desmond,_ ” Min said and bowed a little as far as they could see. “ _Today we’re doing a reading exercise, would you like to start?”_

 _“Sure_ ,” Desmond shrugged and Tazim felt a twinge of annoyance, Min usually always asked him to start reading exercises since he was the best at Chinese, though he sometimes had trouble reading it. “Can I?” he asked Fast when the words appeared on the tablet. Fast nodded. Desmond moved the tablet closer to him and started reading out loud and Tazim was frustrated when he didn’t miss a single word. Even Tazim missed words, and he’d been learning Chinese for three years.

“That was very good,” Min said once Desmond was finished, “Now Tazim, you next,” and once more words appeared on the tablet, though Tazim recognized that his passage was much simpler than Desmond’s.

It was the theme for the rest of their Chinese lesson, Desmond got everything right the first time and when they had to write a passage from English to Chinese he finished first. And it was all correct. Tazim really didn’t like Desmond. He was top of their level in both academics and the physical stuff, and he worked hard to be there, to make his dad proud that his son was the top of the class. But here came this kid out of nowhere who was doing the thing Tazim found the hardest with ease. It really ticked him off.

Finally though they could go to lunch. Desmond got right up and left after putting his tablet away. Fuming Tazim did as well and they, along with most of the other novices, tried to take the elevator up to the canteen to eat lunch. Tazim just took the stairs, since even with a bunch of elevators it would take a while, especially since the floor above them had priority, and not to mention the other floors that used these elevators.

Tazim ate his lunch with his age mates, and it was fun. One of the bigger kids from the eighth level showed up to give their half sibling a hard time and make them laugh. But other than that nothing interesting happened. Lunch was long to give you a chance to eat and rest so you didn’t throw up or strain something during the second part of class which was physical training. Tazim took that time to go find his dad.

He went to his room and pimmed his dad, who was probably working and hating it. Every time Tazim had seen him recently he’d been cranky and wasn’t enjoying work. Usually he got a reply instantly if Malik could come see him. But to his surprise, no reply came. He sent another just to be sure, but still no reply. He didn’t know what his dad could be doing to distract him like this since Tazim was one of his highest priorities.

Frowning he left his room, since class was going to start soon. He went to catch an elevator and as he did Desmond came down the hall and stopped at the elevator as well. He didn’t look at Tazim but Tazim didn’t have it in him to be polite right now and was eyeing him obviously. “Do you really know all five languages?” he blurted out.

Desmond looked at him, “I do,” he said and shrugged, “And a bunch of others that aren’t that common.”

“And dead ones?” Tazim asked. Desmond nodded. “Like what?”

“I know Japanese, and I know Greek,” Desmond said, “And Portuguese,” the elevator came.

“I don’t believe you,” Tazim said as they got on.

Desmond shrugged, “You don’t have to,” he said.

Tazim held back more questions for a few seconds before asking, “Who’s your parents? I’ve never seen you before.”

“Altair’s my dad,” Desmond said.

Tazim bristled. His dad told him _all_ about Altair. “Sorry,” he said.

“Why?” Desmond asked.

“Cause Altair’s your dad.”

“Altair’s cool,” Desmond said.

“My dad says he’s a jerk, and mean, and stupid-

“Well your dad is clearly an idiot. Because Altair is awesome,” Desmond said, giving Tazim a hard look.

“My dad’s in support. He’s way smarter than some field agent.”

“Well that doesn’t mean he isn’t an idiot. Everyone knows Altair’s the coolest,” Desmond said stubbornly.

“My dad isn’t an idiot.”

“Yeah he is, anyone who says bad stuff about Altair is an idiot-

Tazim shoved him, “My dad isn’t an idiot,” he growled.

Desmond shoved him back, harder than he was expecting from a boy that was several inches shorter than him. “Your dad’s probably just jealous because Altair’s the best there is and he’s not.”

“No he isn’t,” the elevator opened to the lower novice training floor and they got off.

“Is so,” Desmond said, “Otherwise why would he hate Altair-

“Because he’s a dumb field agent,” Tazim said.

Desmond glared at him, “Altair is part of Alpha. Alpha is the best, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re as stupid as your dad,” and Tazim shoved him again. Hard enough to make him fall.

“Take that back,” Tazim growled.

Desmond looked up at him, surprised he was suddenly on the floor. Then he looked up at Tazim with wide eyes and for a second Tazim thought he looked afraid. Then he felt something twist around his ankles and Desmond pulled his feet out from under him. Tazim fell to the ground with a loud thud. “You’re petty if nothing else,” Desmond told him angrily and was pushing himself to his feet. “Not that I should be surprised, you aren’t anyone significant,” Desmond gave him a look and made to walk off.

Tazim lurched to his feet and grabbed the back of Desmond’s collar. Desmond turned and Tazim punched him in the cheek. Desmond stared at him, stunned. And then moved and Tazim felt a hot burning on his side from Desmond twisting and kicking him in the flank. Tazim punched him again and this time Desmond punched him back.

For their age Tazim was a good fighter. He was nowhere as good as his instructor, or even the kids in the levels above him, but he was good. Top of the class actually. Or he was. Fighting Desmond had him seeing that top of the class title slipping away. After the first punch Desmond blocked every single one and just kept hitting him.

“What’s going on here?” someone thundered. Someone older, not a novice. Desmond had Tazim by the collar, his fist cocked back, when he stopped and turned. Tazim was still standing and was making his way to grab Desmond by the throat, he also turned.

“Rauf,” Desmond said and his voice sounded weak and tiny.

The instructor- Rauf?- yanked Desmond off Tazim and pushed Tazim back. They both landed on the floor. “What are you two doing?” he demanded.

“He started it!” Tazim yelled and pointed at Desmond, at the same time Desmond did the same to him.

“He was making fun of my dad,” Desmond said.

“He was making fun of me.”

“He shoved me.”

“He tripped me.”

“He punched me-

“Enough!” Rauf yelled and made everyone stop, only then did Tazim notice that there were other students around, lingering at the edges, watching to see what would happen. “You two will be serving discipline,” he told them both sternly.

“But Rauf-

“You will be serving discipline,” Rauf gave Desmond a hard look.

“He started it though!” he complained.

“I don’t care who started it. This is absolutely unacceptable behavior. And you,” he turned to Tazim, “Aren’t you the top of your level?” he demanded.

“Y-yes sir,” he stammered.

“Then you better start acting like it. Both of your parents will be notified of this and I know Malik doesn’t take well to this sort of thing, Tazim,” Rauf told him sternly. Tazim paled a little. “For the next week the two of you will be assisting the bots who clean the fortress,” he continued. “And if I find out you’ve been fighting again there will be greater consequences. I don’t care if your fathers don’t like each other, you are age mates. Act like it,” he gave them both hard looks. Tazim adverted his eyes, incredibly embarrassed and ashamed of himself.

Then Rauf grabbed Tazim up by the arm, “Go to class,” he ordered and gave him a light push in the right direction. “The rest of you go to class, there is nothing to see here,” Rauf said, dismissing the rest. Tazim went and glanced over his shoulder in time to see Rauf haul Desmond to his feet as well. “And as for you-“ but that was all Tazim managed to catch before he was out of earshot.

Fast was standing at the door of their class, wide eyed, “Wow,” he said.

“Shut up Fast,” Tazim grumbled and went in, feeling every punch and kick Desmond had landed. The rest of the day was going to be miserable.

—

It had to happen at some point, Ehan supposed. That he get killed. After no sleep for too long they’d finally found him, sluggish and hot and tired and it had been thankfully a single stroke. When his sim suit froze up on him he was sort of just relieved. He preferred to be the hunter, and not the hunted.

His suit had unlocked and he’d gone and found Achilles. Achilles told him to go rest and then come back once he’d slept, ate, and rehydrated himself. When he had Rauf had been there and given him another sim suit, a sword, and told him to go kill the rest of his squad.

So now Ehan was the hunter. Apparently the others of Alpha who’d died were out here too and were the ones putting the most pressure on the rest of their squad mates. Ehan was looking for one guy in particular. He wanted to find Munahid. He knew how his friend thought, he’d be able to find him. After doing a circuit of the entire town he found the building that hid his prey.

Ehan stopped next to a building and crouched, he didn’t have night vision and couldn’t rely on thermals in a sim room. Not for this. It was impossible to gauge distance using thermals in a sim room. Instead he just stayed there, squatted, waiting. He was patient. Now and then he stood up, to help his circulation, but for the most part remained crouched.

The clock on his helmet told him he waited three hours before anything happened. Across the street from him something moved, a subtle thing that Ehan was able to catch. He didn’t move. He just held very still, watching the house, and hoping the shadows hid him well enough. Nothing happened and Ehan waited another hour before slowly getting to his feet. 

He stood there until his limbs didn’t tingle and spent half an hour slowly crossing the street to the building. Ehan knew Munahid was in there. It was exactly the sort of place Munahid liked. It had two exits, at opposite ends of the building, and no windows save for a small one in the door. There was also no upstairs. It was easy to secure and unassuming.

Ehan stood at the door for while, just next to it so if you looked out you couldn’t see him. Then he reached for the handle and turned it slowly. If he scared Munahid his commander would bolt without thought and Ehan would have to start all over again. So he took the time he needed now to do it right, and kept his ears open for signs that Munahid had heard him. There was no noise. He eased the door open slowly, testing the hinges, they were quiet. 

It was pitch black inside and Ehan grumbled to himself. He could go into thermal vision but it could give him a false positive on Munahid’s location. So he didn’t. Instead he waited for his eyes to adjust and slid inside, the door open just enough to let him in. Just as slowly he closed the door.

He knew someone was in here. Instinct told him someone was in here. They knew Ehan was in here too. Munahid didn’t move though and Ehan took the sword out. In his mind’s eye he could see the other exit and now all he had to do was find Munahid in this black soup he’d hidden himself in.

Ehan stood and listened. There was no sound and he quieted his breathing, his heart, until he could hear the soft sounds of someone else breathing. He wasn’t the best at the twelfth EV, not like Jari. In fact Ehan wasn’t good with a lot of EVs, but unlike a lot of Alpha he was patient, he was able to wrap himself in silence and move like an owl hunting prey, which for his size made him sort of unique. He could bring up a rudimentary image of the area through the twelfth EV though and he could see a figure crouched. Not in a corner or against a wall, but rather three feet away from him.

Ehan moved at the same time Munahid did, and he missed getting kicked or punched as he ducked and rolled right into his commander. Munahid punched him in the side, making him grunt, but Ehan punched back and they crashed around on the floor making all sorts of noise that no doubt anyone outside would be able to hear.

They kicked at each other and shoved and eventually Ehan found the sword he’d lost during the fight on the dirty floor. He grabbed it and ran it up Munahid’s flank. Though it was just a baton it still felt like a sword on naked flesh and Munahid hissed and rolled off him, scrambling to his feet.

Ehan rocked upwards into a crouch, “Just give up,” he said.

“Fucking… hell no,” Munahid said, somewhere around him. “That hurt by the way,” he added.

“It’s supposed to,” Ehan said turning in his crouch so he could catch Munahid if he came at him from out of the the darkness.

“That suit come with night vision that works?” Munahid asked.

“If it does you won’t get to find out anyway,” and Ehan was keeping Munahid in his general forward, using their words to a better sound image in his head.

Once he was sure he knew where Munahid was lunged, lashing out with the sword. Munahid yelped when he grazed it across his ribs again and he grabbed Munahid’s legs, yanking them out from under him. Munahid dropped heavily with a grunt of pain, and laid still. “Alive?” Ehan asked him after a moment.

“For now,” Munahid groaned, Ehan was holding onto his leg, his foot under Munahid’s armpit, over his other thigh, so he couldn’t twist away.

Ehan stayed there a moment, catching his breath from their fight, “Got ‘cha,” he said.

“Yeah,” Munahid sighed.

Once he’d caught his breath Ehan moved so he could straddle Munahid’s chest and took out the sword. Munahid gave a resigned sigh with Ehan put it up under his armpit. “Really? That’s just rude,” he said and Ehan could imagine the look he was getting.

Ehan looked down at where Munahid’s face was though he couldn’t see it himself. “I give as good as I get,” and he pushed the sword into the armpit. Munahid cried out and Ehan knew he’d be in pain for a little bit before he ‘bled out’ or his suit decided enough time had past to fill his lungs with blood. Ehan got up with a grunt and left Munahid there to die.

He felt better actually. Less wound up. He’d been feeling really off the past few days, before the stress test. Killing his friend in a sim had felt good. Especially since Munahid was the source of all of his bad feelings. Even though it’d been Altair’s fault, a slip of the tongue no doubt. He didn’t blame his One though. It was still on Munahid though, even though he didn’t know he’d been doing it.

Ehan sighed and shook his head. He really needed to get his head in the right place. He didn’t have time for this. He had the rest of Alpha to kill.

—

Altair knew it was inevitable. That he’d get killed in the sim. He didn’t expect to get sniped from two blocks down by a killer shot that locked up his entire suit and made him face plant. Mira was dead already, he’d gone to find something to help keep her warm and he’d come back to see her crawling out of their hidey hole with the help of one of the Third-classes.

He waited impatiently for the suit to kick back in as his killer approached. “That’s a hat trick,” he heard Ehan said.

“Seriously? What the hell five?” Altair demanded.

“Third phase is for Alpha to hunt itself,” Ehan said, “You’re one of the last ones left.”

“Who else?”

“Jari, Kanwai, and Sally,” Ehan stood over him and rolled him over before offering a hand. Altair tried to move and lurched up to grab it. Ehan pulled him to his feet. “Though you should go rest. It’s been almost five days since the sim started.”

“You’re kidding,” Altair said, though he couldn’t say he was surprised.

“Nope. Go get yourself together.”

“How long since you died?”

“Three days,” Ehan said. “I got six, and half of Alpha.”

Altair shivered, “So you’re the one who got most of us huh?”

“Yes, sir,” he nodded.

“Enjoy it?”

“No, sir. I’m just good at it,” and with that he turned and walked away. Altair frowned after Ehan and went to find the exit. He found it quickly.

Rauf was sitting in a little booth, “Altair,” he said brightly when he saw Altair and slid off the stool.

“Hey,” Altair said even as Rauf wrapped his arm around his neck. No kisses, he noted with annoyance, and put his hands around Rauf’s waist. “What? I don’t get a good job kiss?”

“You’ve been in there five days. Your smell,” Rauf said bluntly.

Altair made a face, “Right,” he nodded and leaned down to kiss Rauf on the cheek anyway before letting him go a bit.

Rauf hung on a moment longer and said, “Your son’s getting discipline,” he said.

Altair curse, “What’d Darim do now?”

“Not Darim,” Rauf said.

“What? Than who?”

“Desmond.”

Altair made another face, “Desmond’s not my son,” he said petulantly, though he knew he was fighting a losing battle. Desmond didn’t call him dad, but treated him like one, and Darim and Sef both treated Desmond like a brother.

“He might as well be. He was fighting Tazim al-Sayf,” Rauf let him go. Altair sighed, “Honestly you two aren’t even related how does he hate Malik’s kid?”

“No idea,” Altair rubbed his temple. “They were fighting?”

“Yes, and they beat the crap out of each other. I was there to help a friend and heard it. Tazim still has a black eye.”

Altair groaned, “Okay… okay, shit. Have you dealt with it?”

“Yeah,” Rauf nodded, “he’s been talked to. But you might want to too since you’re the only one he listens to really.”

“Don’t remind me,” Altair groaned. “Okay, shower, food, sleep, and then I’m coming to see if I can pick off the last of them.”

“Don’t count on it. Ehan’s efficient. He’ll probably be done by the time you get here.”

“Okay,” Altair said, “Then I’ll just come find you instead,” he winked at Rauf. Rauf rolled his eyes. “Bye,” and he kissed Rauf on the cheek again before leaving and heading for his room in the sleeping halls.


	17. Everyone Does it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is word play
> 
> but DO NOTE THE NEW RATING
> 
> hi my name is xazz and I write porn sometimes

Altair was glad the stress tests were over. Achilles and Rauf had finished their intensive evaluation of Alpha and were now pouring over the data and making plans for the official training schedule. That would take them a few days, and it might have to wait. Altair was on his way up to see the Mentor. The bank was busy today, apparently in the past week there had been an odd economic surge in St. Adams, money was moving, and thus so were they. They weren’t just a bank on the outside, above ground admins were indeed bankers. Altair rode the elevator to the upper floors with no less than four bike messengers, all with parcels or important messages. He was the only one who went up to the top floor though.

When he was let in Mario was on his computer, working. Altair didn’t know all the dealings Mario dealt with as the Mentor, but he didn’t have to. Rauf knew, and it was a lot. They just kept Altair around to ensure that the Order’s interests were maintained. “Sir,” he saluted.

Mario glanced at him, “Sit, I’ll be right with you,” and Altair sat, allowing himself to relax. The last time he’d been here had been over a month ago with Terry, the day they’d brought Desmond home. The kid’s arm was long since healed, Altair didn’t know how it’d happened so quickly. No one did. He healed fast, but Desmond’s body had fixed a broken limb in three weeks. More mysteries. Altair just didn’t think about it.

Finally Mario looked at him, turning away from his computer, “Hello One,” he said.

“Sir.”

“I have a task for you.”

“Of course,” Altair nodded.

“Its in Manapos-

Altair groaned, “Are you kidding? I thought we didn’t deal with Manapos because of what happened in three twenty-six,” Altair said, grumpy now.

“That still stands,” Mario said, “But this is important.”

“I hate Manapos,” Altair grumbled and folded his arms. Altair hated a lot of things though. He hated Manapos a lot though. It was up there with Utah for being the shittiest country Altair had ever had to deal with, but for a completely different reason.

“Well if the fortress in Europe was still standing we wouldn’t have to deal with it. But it isn’t and its on our side of Europe, thus our job to handle it. Now suck it up.”

Altair sighed, “Yes, sir,” he said, still annoyed.

“Good. Now,” Mario tapped the table, it came to life and displayed a holographic image of a man. Altair didn’t recognize him, he wore a white suit and had white hair and looked very polished. “This is Anto Mansov, the current Chairman,” another figure appeared, next to Anto, they were younger with blond hair and wore something Altair would only describe as a dress. “And this is his son, Jock. Recently Manapos and Spain have been… upset with each other over a missing data cube. No one knows where it went and we don’t have the intelligence to know what was on it. All we know is that Spain thinks Manapos has it and they’re threatening action to get it back. Anto is very concerned for the safety of his son in this time, since he's Anto’s only heir-

“You’re sending me on a babysitting job?” Altair asked, unable to believe what he was hearing. “Are you kidding me right now Mario? I’m the head of Alpha and I’m going to be some brat’s, who I might add looks barely older than my oldest son, bodyguard?”

“Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying,” Mario said in a hard tone that Altair knew meant he’d hear nothing against this and Altair wouldn’t be able to get out of it. “Anto is paying us a lot of money, and he said if my best operatives were on this he’d give us more.”

Altair groaned, disgusted. “Fine,” he said, because even he knew that money to fund the Order didn’t come out of thin air.

“You and two others will be running this mission, it will be you, Delta-one, and someone from your unit of our choice. I’d pick a woman.”

“…Why?”

“Because according to Anto Jock doesn’t like authoritative men telling him what to do.”

“I’m going to fucking break this kid in half,” Altair said blandly.

“Your mission isn’t just to watch Jock, its to, if possible, locate the data cube and return it to the Spanish. That is if the Manapal government even took it in the first place.”

Altair rubbed his eyes, “Great. How long will this mission run?”

“Probably a few weeks, until Manapos and Spain can reach some sort of understanding.”

“I’ll bring Mira,” Altair said, “if the Manapal have the data cube, she’ll find it,” he wasn’t looking forward to this.

“Good. I’m glad you’re taking this in stride, Altair.”

“Oh don’t misunderstand Mentor,” Altair said, “I think this is a stupid mission, one _far_ below my ability and should be farmed out to other members of my squad, or even Charlie, but I know what needs to be done. When do we leave?”

“Tomorrow night. I’ll speak with Terry and Mira between now and the end of today.”

“Right. If that’s all Mentor?”

“Yes, I’ll have an information packet sent to you,” Mario smiled at him as Altair got to his feet. 

Altair scowled at him. “This is payback for the upper squads calling you the Audi isn’t it?” Altair asked.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Mario said in such a pleasant, passive aggressive tone that Altair knew yes, this was payback. Payback that, probably, wouldn’t put his life in danger but would piss him off. And it did. What a low blow. Altair wouldn’t forget this any time soon.

“Right. Good day, sir,” and he didn’t bother to salute as he left.

—

Tazim didn’t know how he felt about the whole thing. After discipline Tazim came to the conclusion that Desmond was an okay kid. He wasn’t a boaster and just quietly did as instructed as fast and efficiently as possible. Stuck together for an entire week helping the cleaner bots it was hard not to talk and Tazim was impressed with how smart Desmond was, and was surprisingly humble. He’d go so far as to call Desmond his friend after their discipline.

But he also fucking hated Desmond for being better at _everything_ than him. Tazim worked hard. He trained hard and did extra work to understand his academic lessons and did everything in his power to be _the best_. As far as he could tell Desmond was just naturally good at everything. All their schooling, and while his style wasn’t up to par with theirs, he could fight just as well, he just knew.

Tazim was sitting next to Desmond in class, Desmond had his tablet in front of him but wasn’t looking at it, he was looking ahead, head on his palm, staring at the teacher in a sort of bored trance. Tazim was used to this by now. Desmond either knew what the instructor was teaching already, or he was absorbing it, but the two states looked exactly the same. He wasn’t taking notes, and he didn’t seem to be paying attention. He was just staring. It was weird. Desmond was weird.

When they had a break Tazim said, “Know this already?”

“No,” Desmond said, “It was actually really interesting,” he finally looked down at his tablet and typed out a few sentences on their note app. “Though mostly irrelevant and completely wrong. Since that isn’t how it works,” since the lesson had been about resonance and its social implications in both the fortress and society.

“What?” Tazim asked, “That’s so how it works. That’s how people are chosen to be joined,” he said.

Desmond gave him a look, “That’s not how it works,” was all he said, “And that isn’t what its for,” he tapped out a few more words and when Tazim looked at his notes he saw that they were each point the teacher had made. Next to each one was -WRONG.

“And you know?” Tazim asked, annoyed.

Desmond looked up, “If it was I’d resonate with at least someone in this fortress. But I don’t. That isn’t how it works,” and then the instructor was telling everyone to be quiet for their next lesson. Tazim forgot about it. It was just another weird thing a weird boy like Desmond said and easily forgettable.

Desmond didn’t know what he was talking about. Tazim knew how resonance worked, it was why he was the way he was. His parents had resonated, and so he had a higher ability than some of the other kids. Most kids had parents with low to mid resonance. His dad said he and his mom had had ‘upper’ resonance. Not high, but not mid resonance. Tazim didn’t understand all of it since he’d yet to find someone he resonated with, which was normal. Most people didn’t start resonating till puberty.

At lunch he got a surprise when Malik showed up and sat right next to him, without announcing himself. “Hey bud,” Malik said, giving him a one armed hug.

“Dad!” and he hugged his dad tightly. He hadn’t seen Malik in seemed like forever. It was fairly normal.

Malik kissed him on the head, “How have you been? Lessons good? No more discipline?”

“No, no more,” he promised.

“Good, you getting along with that boy now?” Malik asked.

“Mhm!” Tazim nodded sharply.

“Good,” Malik said, though seemed uneasy, “That’s good,” and he turned to his lunch.

“Even if it is Altair’s son,” Tazim said. His dad chuckled.

“He certainly has everything going against him doesn’t he?”

“Not his fault his dad is dumb,” Tazim said with a grin. Malik didn’t smile back. “What?” he asked, instantly worried he’d said something wrong. But his dad was always calling Altair stupid or an idiot or a bafoon. Tazim was used to hearing Altair mentioned in the same sentence as his stupidity.

Malik’s mouth went thin, “We’re not going to say that stuff about Altair anymore,” he said, very serious.

“We’re not?”

“No. Both of us,” he said it like it pained him, Tazim knew his dad hated Altair. He wasn’t quite sure _why,_ but he did. Tazim couldn’t even imagine what it was to hate one of his age mates that much like his dad and Altair did. “Altair’s not smart like us,” he agreed, “but… he’s smart in his own way, a different way,” he said.

“Like what?” Tazim asked.

“He’s a field agent, a very good one. In that he’s smart, and excels.”

Tazim puffed up his cheeks, “Okay,” he said. He wondered what in the world had happened to make his dad change his tune about Altair, even if not to like, to at least the ability to say Altair was good at _something_. Even if that something was going out on the field and doing whatever field agents did. They didn’t learn about that stuff until the higher levels and they were going to go on their pilgrimages.

“Good,” Malik gave him an affectionate nudge.

“Can I come see you after lessons?” he asked.

“Sure,” Malik nodded, “After dinner okay? I have some stuff to do.”

“Okay,” Tazim grinned at him and turned back to eating his lunch.

—

A pair of arms wrapped around Rauf’s middle, sending a gentle tingle down Rauf’s spine, “Hey,” he said when Altair leaned down and nuzzled him. He’d heard Altair come in while he worked, standing at the sim room podium. Stress tests were over, he and Achilles were compiling the data, and working out a good training regiment for Alpha.

“Hey,” Altair said and kissed his neck, his jaw, up behind his ear, practically any skin he could put his lips on. Rauf felt himself wanting to roll his shoulders, as it was times like these he was very aware of their resonance, which could feel like fingers lightly brushing against the skin. “I have a new mission.”

“If its to Utah I’m going to have some very strong words for Mario,” Rauf said, tensing a little.

Altair chuckled and turned Rauf around so they were face to face, though Rauf had to lean back a bit to look up at him. He hated being so short, Altair was nearly an entire head taller than him. Hopefully Sef didn’t have to deal with this when he was older. “No, just Manapos,” he said.

“Oh… is that all?”

“Me, D-one and Mira are security detail for the Chairman’s kid,” Altair said, arms looped around Rauf’s waist still.

“So a nice, safe, mission, then?” Rauf asked.

“Should be. Nice and boring,” he leaned down and dropped a kiss on Rauf’s lips. “I leave tomorrow,” he said still nearly up against Rauf’s face.

“How long?”

“Dunno. Could be a few weeks. Lot of nothing going to happen in Manapos,” he shrugged. “But I’m guessing you know what I’m thinking,” and Rauf made a startled noise in his throat when Altair reached down and grabbed his ass and lifted up, nearly picking him up off the floor.

“Well not like its particularly _hard_ to read your mind,” Rauf said, his arms going around Altair’s neck. “Man of simple needs.”

Altair tugged on his lower lip and Rauf felt his heart skip, “I just know what I want,” he said lowly.

“Give me a second to log out?” Rauf asked. Altair grunted and let him go, unwinding from him so Rauf could turn around. Altair pressed up against his back, hands on his hips, resting his chin on Rauf’s head. “You’re going to miss the fun training,” Rauf said.

“I’m sure I’ll live somehow,” Altair said.

“Hopefully it won’t take long,” Rauf said, saving his work and closing down the sim programs he’d been running. The sim room, which had previously looked like a normal dojo, rather small and personal, slid back into white walls and floor. “Patience, Altair,” he scolded when Altair pushed his hand up under Rauf’s shirt making his heart jump a little. He felt it all the way up his spine like a low electrical charge.

“You know that was never exactly my strong suit,” Altair said, his face back down in his neck.

Rauf logged out and put the room to sleep. “Done,” he twisted away from Altair, “Come on,” he beckoned and Altair followed after him quickly. Rauf called a local elevator, so they’d have priority and Altair pushed him into it when the doors opened. He barely registered Altair slapping a button before Altair had him pressed against a wall, mouth on his neck. Rauf groaned softly and grabbed at Altair’s shoulders Altair’s desire turning him on like he wouldn’t normally be.

“Where are we going?” Rauf asked because they’d been going down too long for the floor his room was on.

“My room,” Altair said, nuzzling against his beard.

“Any reason?” Rauf didn’t like Altair’s room that much, it looked about as lived in as it was; which wasn’t a lot.

“… The boys don’t know where it is,” and Rauf laughed so hard he needed to push Altair away so he could breathe. “What?” he asked.

“You’re so funny,” was all Rauf said just as the elevator dinged. “Worried about something like that,” he grinned at Altair as he was pulled out of the elevator and down the hall. It was still light out, and along the walls the ‘windows’ showed fields with forests and mountains in the background.

“This is a long mission,” Altair said, stopping a moment to pull Rauf close, “I’m going to miss you,” and for some reason Rauf found himself blushing a little. Then Altair pulled Rauf the rest of the way to his room.

“We could have just locked the door,” Rauf said as Altair swiped his key to unlock his door and pushed it open.

“Better safe than sorry. Plus I’m always in your room,” Rauf closed the door as Altair turned on a light. “Slightly more convenient for me when we’re done since I can just get ready to go,” and he looked Rauf up and down in a way that Rauf knew he might as well not be wearing clothes at this point.

“When do you leave again?” Rauf asked, leaning back against the door.

“Tomorrow night,” Altair moved to right in front of him, hands on Rauf’s hips. Rauf smiled and ran his teeth across his lower lip, amused. “I hope you didn’t have anything important planned for tomorrow,” Altair smirked.

“If I did would it matter?” Rauf asked.

“Mmm, no,” and Altair pulled him away from the door. Altair’s room was one room with a bed, a dresser, and not much else. His partner kept his room free of personal items or pictures or casual things, preferring to keep them in Rauf’s room. Half assembled on a mannequin and across the top of the dresser was Altair’s Alpha suit, lifeless and unpowered, the cold, shiny, helmet faced towards the wall.

“So then what I say doesn’t matter,” Rauf said and he knew Altair had faced the helmet away on purpose, for him. He didn’t like the helmet front, thought it was creepy, especially if they were having sex since it was the only camera in the room.

“If it was really important I’m sure you’d figure out how to convince me to let you leave,” Altair grinned and pressed a few quick kisses to his lips, turning them so Rauf could sit on the bed.

“Or just ordered you fuck yourself,” Rauf grinned. 

Altair leaned down to kiss him, deeply, stealing his breath, and he wrapped his arms around Altair’s shoulders. “What was that?” he asked, slightly breathless.

“I’d just order you to go _fuck yourself_ so I could leave,” and Altair pushed him back onto the bed, making him crawl back a little.

“Why don’t you swear more?” Altair asked him, kneeling between his legs.

“If I did I wouldn’t be able to lead you around by the cock with it,” and Altair kissed him again and he grinned into it, satisfied. Altair was, for the most part, the dominating member of their relationship, but then it was hard to dominate a guy who was Alpha-One. Rauf had more than a few tricks to literally lead Altair around by the nose with to keep him in line though. Couldn’t let all that power go to Altair’s head after all, it’d get even bigger than it already was.

“Not like you don’t already,” Altair said when they parted, their noses bumping together.

“Mmmm, yeah but you actually fucking listen when I speak now,” and Rauf could and would never get tired of how Altair looked a bit more alert every time he did that. “And the novelty would wear off if I talked like one of your kids,” he grinned.

“I doubt it,” Altair said and was tugging on their pants. “Seven years and you only do it in bed. Seven years to make up for it.”

“Shut the fuck up Altair,” and he chuckled because Altair was an idiot.

“Yes, sir,” Altair said.

“That’s more like it,” Rauf managed before Altair was kissing him again and running his fingers through his hair and up under his shirt. Rauf hooked his legs around Altair’s thighs, kissing him back, slowly, thoroughly. This wasn’t a rush job like the day Altair had come home and they’d had to play nice all day while they taught his class.

Altair pulled away with a grunt so he could tug off his shirt and he was about to pull Rauf’s off but got distracted as Rauf ran his hands along his chest. Altair didn’t have a lot of scars. Most of them were tiny and light, normal blades or the low caliber pistols most police or security carried not powerful enough to leave more than a bruise that would fade with time. He had one or two large scars, from a lucky shot, or not being fast enough to move out of the way of a high velocity, non ammunition, projectile. Both scars were old and well healed by now, and had been there since Rauf had known him. Altair grabbed one of his hands as Rauf let his fingertips brush against his flanks.

Rauf grinned when Altair pressed Rauf’s hand up to his lips. “Don’t,” he said into Rauf’s fingers.

“Or what?” Rauf asked.

“Don’t,” was all he said again, a bit more petulantly this time, since Altair was surprisingly ticklish.

“What? Don’t do this?” Rauf asked and used his other hand to brush against Altair’s flank. Altair jerked away with a sharp inhalation and then grabbed Rauf’s other hand. Rauf just laughed.

“Didn’t I just say?”

“Yeah so? Like I give a fuck,” Rauf grinned as Altair tried really hard to scowl at him. “Oh don’t make that face,” Altair just frowned deeply at him. With a roll of his eyes Rauf yanked his hands from Altair’s and wrapped them around his shoulders, pulling him down to kiss him. “Better?”

“Barely,” Altair grumbled. He hated being tickled. Rauf knew that, but he still did it, because he liked to see Altair pout at him.

“It’s much better,” Rauf said, grinning. Altair still looked like he was trying hard to be annoyed with him. “If you’re going to be grumpy I can leave, since you’re the one who dragged me away from work-

“No,” Altair said and pushed him back when Rauf acted like he was about to sit up and move away. “No,” and kissed him and did so for a long time. There were no clocks or time projections in Altair’s room, nor were there any windows. Time was infinite in Altair’s quarters it seemed, and with Altair kissing him it definitely felt like it. 

Altair kissed his lips, his mouth, and then down his jaw to his neck and throat. Rauf made an annoyed noise when fingers replaced Altair’s tongue just above his collar and then Altair was pulling Rauf’s shirt off and it fluttered off somewhere out of reach. “Now better,” Altair said against his skin and Rauf had to think a few seconds to remember what that was in reference to. Thinking wasn’t something he wanted to do right then though, more interested in Altair’s mouth and tongue on his skin. It was up on his throat and working down to his collar bone and chest making Rauf’s breath hitch a little.

“You’re making me think too much, stop it,” Rauf said, annoyed. He didn’t like thinking about things during foreplay, or during sex either actually.

Altair looked up at him from where his lips were pressed lightly against his sternum. Rauf swallowed. Seven years; he still wasn’t used to those amber eyes looking at him like that. Bright and intense that made him shiver and the hair on the back of his neck stand on end that was something beyond their resonance. “I can do that,” Altair promised in a way that made Rauf want to squirm, but he didn’t, he wasn’t naked enough squirming. He did let his toes flex in his boots though.

Rauf licked his lips and nodded. Altair sat up and tugged on the button of Rauf’s pants. Rauf lifted his hips once they were unbuttoned and Altair dragged them down and wrestled with them a moment before Rauf said, “Stop,” and Altair gave him a look. “Idiot,” he rolled his eyes and sat up to tug on his boot’s laces. “Honestly its like dealing with a child,” Rauf gave him a look.

“You know I don’t do my best thinking in these situations,” Altair said and moved enough so they could yank off both their boots and kick them across the room. They both winced when one of Altair’s banged against the door, loudly.

“Watch it,” Rauf scolded.

“Its my door,” Altair complained and pulled on the ends of Rauf’s pants. Rauf laid back again so they could come off easier, raising his hips off the bed so they slid right off.

“Yeah but you want Mario talking to you for denting your door with your big, dumb, boot?” Rauf asked.

Altair pushed him down, grabbing his wrists, “Well you know what they say about guys with big boots,” he smirked.

“Yeah, small brains,” Rauf grinned. Altair completely deflated and Rauf laughed. “I’m just teasing Altair. I know you’re very smart,” and he craned his head up to kiss him on the nose.

“Damn right I am,” Altair grumbled, “I’m not the best by being an idiot.”

“Didn’t we agree to not do this whole thinking thing?” Rauf asked him abruptly. 

Altair froze and looked down at him, “We did,” he said.

“Then get with the not thinky bit damnit,” and now Rauf did squirm, annoyed Altair wasn’t touching him enough. Now without most of their clothes their resonance was like a slightly off tune chord that hung in the air, just too soft to hear but they could feel across the pores of their skin. Normally Rauf didn’t notice it. You live with something long enough and it became common place. But times like this he was hyper aware of it, and knew Altair was too.

He gasped when Altair ran his hand down his flank and Altair sucked on part of his lower lip, even with just a touch into it as much as Rauf was. He leaned down and kissed Rauf’s chest, which sent little pulses of delight down Rauf’s spine, making his toes curl. Altair kissed down Rauf’s chest to his belly and Rauf very nearly held his breath when Altair fingered the hem of his underwear. Altair looked up at him from where he was and Rauf swallowed and Altair pushed one of his legs up, pulling down his underwear. Altair grinned once Rauf got the one leg out and Rauf moaned when Altair nuzzled his groin.

“For fuck’s sake,” Rauf whined. “Altair,” his voice was incredibly pitiful but he didn’t care. “Shit,” was really the only thing he could say when Altair wrapped his lips around his cock. Sometimes he didn’t realize how badly he needed to get laid, because he was always busy, but then it was happening and he was reminded acutely how much he enjoyed sex.

Rauf reached down to grab Altair’s hair, tugging it and petting it like how he knew they liked. Altair sucked slowly, up and down methodically, using his hands along with his mouth and every now and then Rauf’s hips would jerk upwards needily. Stupid Altair and his stupid, wonderful, mouth. 

His head lolled back blissfully, content to let Altair pleasure him. He whined a little when Altair took his mouth away but didn’t mind the soft kisses on his groin or stomach or thighs. Those all felt nice too. Rauf grunted when Altair moved one of his legs so it went over his shoulder, and he wiggled a little so it was comfortable up there. “Altair,” and Altair looked up at him, questioningly, mouth against Rauf’s stomach.

“Hmm?” he asked and Rauf couldn’t handle it. He looked so god damn good and cute. He grabbed Altair’s shoulder’s and dragged him back up to kiss him again and he got goosbumps all along his arms. “What?” Altair asked against his mouth, his tongue flicked against Rauf’s lips.

“Uhg, fuck you,” Rauf complained.

Altair snorted, “What’d I do now?” he asked, reaching down to pull Rauf’s legs around him.

“Not kissing me, or fucking me,” Rauf frowned at him.

Altair brushed their noses together. “I can fuck you,” Altair said lowly and kissed him.

“Yes,” Rauf said and Altair rolled his hips forward, against him. “Pants off though, I am not getting jean burn,” he added sternly, pushing Altair’s face away from him when Altair tried to kiss him. Altair’s head shot upwards at an odd angle, exposing his throat.

“Okay,” Altair said, sounding amused and pulled back and got off the bed. Rauf grinned as Altair took his pants off slowly, moving his hips back and forth till he was wearing nothing but a grin. Rauf sat up so he could remove the last traces of clothing he had on as Altair went around to the side of the bed and sat down.

Altair bumped his elbow against the wall and a compartment opened, extending a table. “Why do you get moveable walls?” he complained, leaning against Altair’s back.

“Tech room,” Altair said, turning his head enough to press a quick kiss to Rauf’s lips. “You got the big room from your rank, I get the tech room cause of my EVs,” he smirked.

“I want moveable walls too,” he complained, loudly.

Altair chuckled, “Maybe next time,” he said and pushed the panel closed, sealing the wall back up. “What was that you wanted me to do again?” he asked.

“Kiss me,” Rauf said, rather innocently. 

Altair pushed him onto his back, straddling one leg and kissed him deeply, “What else was it?”

“I don’t remember,” Rauf said airily, to be annoying. Altair frowned at him. “Something to do with this though,” and Altair perked up when Rauf grabbed his dick and started to stroke it. Altair’s eyes lidded and he got a sort of goofy grin on his face. “Remember?” he asked.

“I do,” Altair groaned and sat back on his thighs and kissed Rauf again and rocked his hips forward into Rauf’s hand a bit. He nuzzled against Rauf’s jaw, “Can I just say, that feels really nice,” he short of moaned before reaching down to curl his hand around Rauf’s in turn.

Rauf moaned when Altair pushed his hand off and wrapped his fingers around the both of them. His legs tightened around Altair’s waist when he did that. Rauf’s breath started to get harder to hold onto, especially with Altair kissing him again, all over his face and his mouth and his neck until he was quite nearly gasping. He grabbed onto Altair’s back, his cut nails leaving raised, red, lines, on Altair’s skin. Far more than any of Altair’s scars, and just as fade-able, crossing against his shoulders and then down his flanks like Rauf was trying to rip him apart. Altair either didn’t notice, or was enjoying them. Regardless he didn’t stop moving his hand or his hips.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” Rauf whined, he was really close, and could feel it in the pit of his stomach.

“Music to my ears,” Altair said smugly.

“Fuck you,” Rauf growled.

“No. But I am gonna fuck you,” Altair said into his ear and Rauf made a noise and he wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad one. All he knew was that it made his toes curl. His nails dug into Altair’s skin and he moaned loudly when he came a few moments later making a mess all over his stomach.

Rauf melted into the bed a bit, panting, eyes closed, like he’d just run a marathon. Orgasms were way, _way_ , more intense with Altair than they had been before they started sleeping together. Between orgasm and resonance they seemed to fry his nerves to a crisp and that had been when he was younger, and he wasn’t getting any younger. Now he just wanted to rest a moment. Altair didn’t let him though and kept kissing his neck, his jaw and some truly pitiful sounds escaped his lips from the attention he was getting.

“Feel good?” Altair asked, nuzzling him.

“Trick question, not answering,” Rauf groaned a little and started to pet Altair’s head. He gasped and his hips arched a little when Altair ground against him, his legs pulling Altair closer. “Fuck,” he whined.

“Yes,” Altair said and moved to lay next to Rauf instead. 

Rauf turned his head and looked at him, “Going to fuck me now?” he asked.

“If you keep giving me those bedroom eyes I’m not going to get a chance,” Altair said, sounding annoyed even.

Rauf snorted, “Shut up, stupid,” he chuckled. Altair leaned over him and grabbed the bottle he’d taken from the wall. On his way back to next to him he kissed Rauf gently, sweetly, and Rauf was all for that. There was a sweet hum on their lips from their resonance and Rauf moaned into Altair’s mouth, wrapping one arm around his neck, when Altair moved one of his legs and fit a slick finger into him. Rauf moved his hips closer to Altair’s, almost impatiently. Though it wasn’t like Altair couldn’t reach. Stupid tall people.

It was slow, delightful, process for Rauf. Altair was always good about making sure he was enjoying himself, since it wasn’t hard for Altair to do that. Rauf’s breathing was deep, but even, eyes lidded, and his face felt hot from Altair’s breath and nearness. Every now and then Altair pressed gentle kisses onto his mouth, stealing away his breath for but a moment, fingers moving at the same pace as Rauf’s breathing.

Rauf caught Altair’s lower lip with his teeth as Altair grabbed his leg and pulled it over his hip. He groaned and took a deep breath when Altair reached down to line himself up and pushed in, making him let go so he didn’t bite Altair’s lip off. “Finally,” he breathed.

“You could have told me sooner,” Altair said.

“I liked it both,” Rauf complained a little. “Now are you going to fuck me or what?”

“Yes I am,” Altair growled, pulling Rauf’s leg more firmly around him, his hips pushing inwards making Rauf gasp and close his eyes, a smile coming to his face.

Except for days when Altair came home from a mission most of their sex life was like this. Sort of slow and drawn out, to savor every moment. They weren’t young men anymore and couldn’t really get away with having sex all night, no matter how often Altair threatened it. One of them always ended up passing out before it got too late, just from a long day, or sex tired. Rauf liked it like this, the soft current of their resonance dancing across their skin where they touched and the firm, steady, press of Altair’s body against his.

Rauf ran his hands through Altair’s hair, messing it up even more than it already was as Altair kept pressing little kisses to his lips. Rauf enjoyed how blown Altair’s amber eyes were, his breath even and opposite to Rauf’s which made it somehow better. He inhaled sharply when Altair pushed inward hard with a grunt and shifted his hold on Rauf’s thigh, pushing him back slightly so he wasn’t on his side but rather again on his back. “Oh,” he sighed, tugging on Altair’s hair.

“Good oh? Bad oh?” Altair asked, though hadn’t stopped moving.

“Good,” he said, grinning.

“Good,” and Altair kissed him again, slowing to a stop to cup Rauf’s face and map the shape of the inside of Rauf’s mouth with his tongue. It was a well worn and mapped territory, but Rauf never got tired of Altair’s desire to do so. Rauf was flushed and out of breath when Altair came up for air, also breathing heavy and he made a pathetic noise when Altair started to move again.

They moved together for a while, shifting across the bed a bit, sometimes Altair kissed him or had his face buried in his neck, and over times Rauf got to look right at him. Rauf was starting to get sore though. “Altair,” he said.

“Hmm?”

“I love you-

“I love you too,” Altair said before he could finish and kissed him. Rauf liked that so didn’t mind.

“But you’re going to need to stop. Sort of starting to hurt,” and he winced a little. Altair made a face. “You’re the one who took too long,” he said.

“Yeah,” Altair sighed and looked down. Rauf gave a little shuttering inhale when Altair pulled out, his back arching. “You still fucking love it though.”

“Not as much as I love being able to sit comfortably,” Rauf said and knocked Altair’s hand away to get him off. Altair groaned in appreciation, leaning over Rauf, every now and then his hips moving with Rauf’s fist, pushing Rauf’s legs up a bit higher too. Altair grabbed Rauf’s cock, which rested against his belly, slowly making a mess of precum across his stomach, and started to stroke at the same speed.

“Fuck,” Rauf breathed.

“Fuck is right,” Altair smirked leaning down so their faces were close. He teased Rauf with almost kisses which frustrated and turned him on at the same time. Rauf moved his hand faster because fuck Altair and got the satisfaction of watching his partner unravel on top of him. Warmth splattered across his chest and stomach and Altair was gasping, sagging onto his elbow. “Holy fuck,” he managed.

“Feel good?” Rauf teased him.

Altair looked up at him, “Could have been better,” and Rauf flushed, knowing what Altair meant.

“You took too long,” Rauf complained and that was all he got out before Altair finished getting him off, doing it so quickly it surprised him. Rauf lay back on the bed, panting, feeling all worn out, Altair leering down at him. “Fucking-“ he didn’t know where he was going with that, “fuck,” he decided.

Altair snorted, “Lemmie go so I can clean that up,” and Altair pointed at Rauf’s chest, he looked down at it and grimaced. Cum was about as sexy as it could get for a few seconds after it had happened. Then it was just sort of sticky, gross, and annoying. Rauf unwrapped himself from Altair so he could get up and just lay back feeling utterly content as Altair went into the bathroom and came back with some damp towels.

Rauf smiled when Altair kissed him as he wiped down Rauf’s chest and stomach and then they both started at a noise. “You hear that?” Altair asked, sitting up and looking around.

“Yeah, I heard it,” Rauf looked towards Altair’s Alpha suit.

“It’s off,” Altair said, meaning the suit, and the noise came again. An odd rumbling noise.

Rauf looked down at his stomach, “I’m hungry,” he said and his stomach growled again. Altair looked at him and then burst out laughing, a delightful whooping sound. “What? How long have we been here? Its probably way past dinner?”

“No idea,” Altair pressed his hand against the wall above his headboard, the room erupted into a beach, the sun had set, the sky and sea dark. A clock was broadcast on the wall in front of him. “Shit yeah it’s nearly seven.”

“Seven? No wonder my stomach is making those noises. I’m starving!” Altair chuckled, “You’re taking me to dinner,” he informed Altair.

“I’d love to,” Altair said, leaning over and pressing a brief kiss to his lips. “Though I think your clothes might smell a bit,” he grinned.

“Good thing I can still wear yours,” Rauf smirked and then rolled away from him and off the bed to rummage through Altair’s clothes to Altair’s pleasure.

—

Tazim knocked on his door half an hour after dinner. Malik had done what he’d needed to do and was waiting for his son to show up. He was surprised Tazim had taken so long. “What took you?” he asked when he opened the door to his son.

“I didn’t know if you needed time to finish that thing you needed to do, so I just waited,” Tazim said and shrugged.

Malik smiled gently at his son, “That was smart,” he told him and hugged him around the shoulders, bringing him into the room. 

Malik’s room, unlike Rauf’s, was one room with a bed in the corner and a screen between it and where he lived normally. He had a few chairs and a vid screen, which he didn’t turn on when Tazim was around. It was a sort of unspoken rule not to expose children to the outside world before they were of age. Tazim didn’t even know what the screen was, and didn’t ask. There were several shelves on the walls, all of them covered in books or little boxes or pictures. Most of them were pictures of Tazim, though there were a few of him and Jessabelle before she’d gone on that mission that had ended her life before Tazim had ever been born.

Usually Tazim threw himself into one of the chairs and just talked endlessly. This time when he went into Malik’s room he went over to one of the pictures of Malik and Jessabelle, beaming at the camera. Jessabelle had had the biggest smile Malik had ever known. “Hey dad?” Tazim called as Malik sat, not picking up the tablet he’d been working on before Tazim had shown up.

“Yes?”

Tazim looked over his shoulder at him, “Did you love my mom?”

Malik frowned, “In a way, I guess,” he shrugged. “We didn’t know each other that well, only getting together because of you.”

“So you didn’t?” he looked back at the picture.

“You know I don’t lie to you Tazim,” Malik said and Tazim put the picture back, “I didn’t love your mother. I didn’t know her long enough for that.”

Tazim sat in the seat opposite him and for a moment Malik saw his mother. The way his brow furrowed when he was thinking was all her, and he had her eyes, and the curly hair. He and Jessabelle had spent a lot of time together after being told they were to be joined, since they both wanted a child, so they might as well get to know their son’s other half. “You two resonated though,” he said.

“We did,” Malik nodded slowly.

“Today our teacher was teaching us about resonance,” he said and Malik made an ‘ah’ sound. That certainly explained the questions.

“Your mother and I had fairly good resonance,” he said.

“Do you have resonance with other people?” Tazim asked.

Malik’s mind instantly flashed to Altair, totally unbidden, and made him annoyed. He pushed that idiot out of his mind. “A few,” Malik said, some better than others, though none to the level it bothered him like it did with Altair. They were all younger or older than him but Malik had never gotten to know them beyond learning that they resonated.

“So why aren’t you with one of them?” Tazim asked.

Malik chuckled, “There is far more to a relationship than resonance,” Malik said, “Just because someone might be _the one_ doesn’t mean you like them.” 

Tazim frowned, deep in thought again, then he asked, “Is it possible to not resonate with anyone?”

“I’ve never heard of it,” Malik said, “Everyone resonate with someone and the fortress has a higher rate of resonating people than in society,” because they were closer. In society everyone was further apart, harder to get in touch with, and even just knowing resonance on a real level could be difficult. Malik hadn’t resonated with anyone in society. “Why you so worried about resonance?” he asked, “Are you worried why you aren’t? You and your age mates won’t start resonating for a few years still.”

“I know that,” Tazim said and then bit his lower lip, “Its just… something Desmond said,” right, Desmond, Altair’s ‘new adoptive son’ who had outted his own son for the top of the class in barely more than a month. Malik didn’t know the child, only knew of him. All support knew about him since the Overseer ran electrical tests on him to test his brain. 

“What’d Desmond say?” Malik asked.

“He said he didn’t resonate with anyone,” Tazim frowned again, “And that what the teacher told us about resonance was wrong.”

Malik laughed, “You’re worried about something some kid told you?” he asked. “Tazim, men and women older and smarter than Desmond have studied resonance for decades, we might not know all the implications of it, but we know what it does and how it works. He might not resonate with anyone in the fortress, but that’s fairly normal. A lot of us with European or Middle Eastern heritage, like us, don’t resonate well with Assassins who are normal American stock,” he said. “Just recently apparently has the resonance started to come back all across the fortress.”

“Really?” Tazim asked.

Malik nodded, “Different populations resonate a bit differently than others. And it doesn’t always mean anything. You know Shaun and Rebecca right?” Tazim nodded, “They barely resonate, Rebecca is America, Shaun from Europe, yet they’re together, and have a little girl,” the only child they’d have.

Tazim sat in thought for several, long, moments. “So Desmond has no idea what he’s talking about then?”

“Probably,” he patted Tazim’s knee. “If he says he doesn’t resonate with anyone in the fortress, he might be right, because he isn’t from this fortress. But everyone resonates with someone.”

Tazim’s mouth went thin for a moment, then he nodded, “Okay,” he said. Then like he’d brushed the entire matter off he perked up, no longer serious or worried about whatever the hell Desmond had told him. Once he was over it, which took about two seconds, Tazim started talking and Malik nearly laughed at his son’s abrupt change as he settled back to listen to his son talk about his days.

—

Maelin shifted, uncomfortable with her big stomach, trying to sleep. She kept moving though, tangling her legs in the sheets and couldn’t get comfortable. A sharp pain in her lower region had woken here a little bit ago. They were fairly normal pains, like she was menstruating. That or she thought the baby had kicked her, which wouldn’t have been the first time either. Finally she decided it wasn’t worth it and just woke up and pushed herself up to a more upright position. Neither Bo, nor Munahid was at her bedside, which she didn’t blame them for as it was fairly late. Munahid had been busy lately, with the rest of Alpha and she was surprised how much she’d missed his company and how acutely she noticed his absence.

She turned on the wall screen with an annoyed groan and tried to get comfortable, shoving pillows this way and that way. Only with a light on did she realize she wasn’t alone in the room and she gave a sharp cry of surprise when she realized this. A man was sitting in a far chair, awake, watching her, though in the dim room she couldn’t see who it was. He didn’t look like Bo or Munahid though, he was bigger, broader.

“Hello?” she asked, and hated herself for sounding uneasy. Ever since Utah she’d been easier to scare and quicker to panic. Not that it was her fault of course. After what had been done to her she was just thankful she could function normally, or could stand the touch of men and feel relief, delight, and love when she kissed Bo. She’d take quicker to panic and scare over the opposite of those any day.

“I don’t speak Korean,” they said in Chinese.

“I speak Chinese,” she said.

“I figured you would,” they said, she still couldn’t tell who it was though. On the wall screen a society channel was playing, and they were trying to sell her something. She ignored it, focused on the man.

“Who are you? Why are you here?” she demanded and then swallowed when they heaved themselves out of the chair with a groan. They were tall, and muscular and she felt very small and vulnerable.

“No one you need to be afraid of,” Ehan said as he turned on the light by her bedside.

“I wasn’t afraid,” she lied stubbornly.

“No, of course not,” he said humorlessly.

“What are you doing here?” she asked defiantly, looking up into his scarred face, one that reminded her of Munahid’s in only that they both had scars, though looked nothing alike.

“Munahid’s been busy,” Ehan said. “He asked one of us to check on you. I volunteered,” and Maelin had never heard Ehan talk so much, in Chinese no less. He was fairly quiet she knew, and sometimes accompanied Munahid when he visited, at least at first. He normally said nothing, merely observing. Some people would take his silence for stupidity, especially since he was strong and a bit of a muscle head. But Munahid talked enough about Altair for her to know that Altair didn’t let stupid muscle heads into his squad. There was a great cunning inside him that his silence hid.

“That was nice of you,” she said.

“It would be if I was a nice man,” Ehan said looking down at Maelin critically and it took every ounce of will she had to try and not squirm out of his sight or to try and hide the swell of her stomach she was incredibly self conscious about. He said something in English, but she had no idea what it was.

“What?” she asked.

“I still don’t understand,” which just confused her. Then he switched subjects to something they both weren’t confused about. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine, all things considered.”

He nodded a little, “When are you due?”

“When the doctors think I can have a C-section without either of our deaths.”

Ehan’s lips went thin, “That is quite a reason.”

“Yes I hope its soon I-“ and she suddenly realized she had no control over her bowels and had wet the bed. She stared at her legs, absolutely horrified she’d just done that as the large wet stain grew on the sheets. Only it didn’t smell like piss.

“Do you want me to call the nurse?” Ehan asked, thankfully saying nothing that would shame her for this though she still felt utterly humiliated that she’d just done this in front of him. Her body was not in her control with this… _parasite_ inside it and was doing things she didn’t do. Mood swings, crying, intense, fleeting, rage, cravings for food she’d never eat, and now she couldn’t even hold back her piss. But that didn’t make any sense. It hadn’t quite _felt_ like that, nor did it smell like urine. It was a different smell. Her eyes widened.

“I think my water just broke,” she said in a small voice and then felt a sharp pain again that made her gasp from the intensity, like the one that had woken her. “And that was a contraction,” she said, realizing what was happening. Her heart jumped and started to pound.

Ehan went over to the other side of the bed quickly and pushed the button that would put them in touch with the nurse’s office at the front. “Hello?” the nurse asked in English, Ehan said something back in English and the only word Maelin caught was her name.

A few moments later a nurse showed up and Maelin hated how excited she looked. They said something to Ehan and Ehan cast a look at her. “I’ll tell Bo and Munahid,” he said and gave her another look and it surprised her in its hostility. It wasn’t openly hostile, but she was surprised Ehan could even dislike someone enough to give them such a look. Then he left without another word.

Maelin had to focus on the nurse now who was motioning for her to get out of bed so she could, assumedly, wash herself while they changed the sheets. Maelin thought, as she showered, that this meant it was over. This torment and ordeal was finally over and she could get back to her life, and go back home. The thought nearly made her weep.

—

With a cry of frustration Mira neatly killed the last hologram the sim room had provided for her to fight. She yanked her knife out of what looked like a Rose Corps security member, angrily. She didn’t get angry often, but she was mad about this. She hadn’t slept well last night after the Audi had told her that One, herself and Delta-One were going to Manapos for a babysitting gig. It was insulting to her and the Ones and she knew the Audi knew it. And if it was one thing that pissed her off more than anything it was people disrespecting her One.

Which is why she was up in the training halls this early in the morning, trying to make herself tired. All it did though was fire her up. At least it helped focus her anger.

“Sim complete,” she said, slightly out of breath. The sim, which had been an old mission she’d run in S Fla to take out a corrupt business man who was running a sex trade on the side of his sugar farm. He’d hired Rose Corps to guard his home. It had only been her and Kanwai on that mission and the only people dead had been the man they were sent to kill. Her rerun of the mission was sloppy and she’d killed every guard, but the mark had gotten away. The room folded itself around her to look like the lobby of a dentist. She’d lost a tooth while in society and had needed it checked out. The Order had given her a new tooth since then. Doctor’s lobby’s were oddly calming to her.

“Fucking stupid, fucking idiot,” she muttered to herself, going over to the podium terminal that showed up a few feet from her. “Fucking sloppy and lazy and shitty and _stupid_. Get it together Mira what is wrong with you?” and she touched the terminal long enough to start another sim.

As it was booting up though she lost the will to do it. She was too angry to continue. If she was going to keep running sims she might as well do it with someone else, since she was being bad at it right now. She canceled the sim and got out of the sim suit, which was emulating her Alpha suit, and put the room back to how it was supposed to be.

She’d come to the sim room to work out her frustrations. Turned out it just made them worse. She went to find Kanwai. Kanwai would run sims with her. Mira took the stairs to Kanwai’s floor going through her mental catalogue of floors and numbers of where Alpha lived.

Kanwai, a long time ago, had given her thumb print access to her room. She was sure Kanwai was sleeping still but it wouldn’t be the first time Mira had shown up and dragged Kanwai out of bed to go beat up fake people with her.

“Kanwai, wake up-“ she said as she opened the door and then stopped because she wasn’t expecting what she was seeing.

“Mira?” Kanwai asked, staring.

“Mira?” Chris echoed and looked over Kanwai’s hip.

Mira’s mouth was hanging open. She knew Kanwai and Chris’ antagonism wasn’t real since no one on Alpha hated each other. She didn’t know they were sleeping together though. “I’m going to leave now.”

“Good idea,” Kanwai said, staring back at Mira, surprised as Mira was to have been caught in bed, clearly having a morning romp, with Chris.

“And I’m telling _everyone_ ,” and she closed the door to Kanwai yelling ‘Mira!’

Mira made her escape, and snagged an elevator full of Foxtrot agents on their way to the hanger and got off at another floor still in the sleeping quarters. This wasn’t the floor One’s room was on, but it was the floor he lived on, because first things first, she needed to share this juicy news with One. She knew he was awake since she wasn’t sure One even slept. She’d never seen him sleep.

She got a surprise when Twelve was curled up by Rauf’s door, sleeping. “Twelve?” she called and knelt by the kid.

“Hmm?” he asked and opened his eyes blearily. “Mira?” he asked sleepily.

“Yeah. What are you doing here?”

“Looking for Altair,” he said. “Darim said he was going away and I wanted to see him before he left.”

“So why are you here? You should be in your hall. Did you sleep up here?” Twelve nodded. “Oh kid,” she sighed.

“I wanted to see him before he left and I figure he couldn’t ignore me if I was right in front of the door,” he yawned.

“This is true,” she knocked. No answer. “One!” she called, still no answer. “I don’t think he’s in there Twelve.”

“I know. But he’ll come back,” he pouted.

“Well, I doubt he’d like you sleeping outside, so lets go inside, huh?”

“Its locked,” he said.

“Pft,” she said dismissivly and tugged a pair of gloves from her back pocket. “You’re talking to me kid. There hasn’t been a lock, electronic, Order crafted, or lock and key, created I can’t open,” she tugged on the skin tight gloves and touched the panel of Rauf’s lock. The gloves allowed her to do low level interfacing with the device and she dialed her eyes to see what she was looking at. With a few small twitches and a swipe of her thumb the lock clicked and she opened it. “Child’s play,” she said and helped Twelve to his feet and ushered him inside.

“What are you here for?” Twelve asked her.

“Need to talk to One about something super secret about Alpha,” she said with a grin.

He eyed her, “You you don’t.”

“So do!” she declared. “So can’t tell you Twelve, sorry,” she grinned.

Twelve yawned again, “I hope he shows up soon,” he said and they waited in silence.

Some time later the lock clicked again, “I swear the things that come out of your mouth- What in the world are you two doing in here?” Rauf asked as he opened the door. “And better yet _how_ did you get in here?”

“Mira,” One growled from over Rauf’s shoulder.

“Hey dad,” she said cheerfully, “Super news about Alpha,” she said.

“Yeah, what?” he growled, annoyed.

“Kanwai and Chris are… well… you know,” and she looked at the big hickey on Rauf’s neck. Rauf noticed and put his hand up to it.

“Mira get out of my room,” Rauf said.

“Really?” One asked.

“I literally walked into it and then walked out,” she hopped to her feet. “Now I need to go the twins so excuse me,” and she slipped past Rauf and One without any fear and practically skipped down the hall back towards the elevators.

—

Rauf watched Mira leave, “She needs to learn some manners,” he grumbled.

“Desmond what are you doing in here?” Altair asked Desmond and they finally went inside. Rauf closed the door.

“Darim said you were going away,” Desmond said, frowning. “I wanted to see you before you left. Where were you?”

Altair and Rauf traded looks, “Working,” Altair said, “and getting ready for my mission. Why aren’t you in your hall?”

“I told you-

“Desmond you _need_ to follow the rules if you want to live here. That means sleeping in your hall. Did Mira let you in?” Desmond nodded, “Why?”

“I… uh… slept outside your door,” and Altair slapped his hand across his eyes.

“What was that about him not really being your kid?” Rauf asked, “Because I swear you’ve done something like that. Though I think it was with Giovanni when he was Alpha-One and he wanted to kick you off Alpha for going kamikaze so often.”

“I didn’t have to sleep in the novice halls then,” Altair snapped. “You,” he pointed at Desmond, “Go back to your hall. I’ll come say goodbye to you and my boys before I leave,” and he pointed at the door.

“But Altair-

“But Altair,” Altair mimicked Desmond, “Go, that’s an order twelve.” Desmond pouted at him but slid off the chair and left. “For fuck’s sake. _Now_ do you see why we spent last night in my room?”

“Yes, that was a good idea,” Rauf agreed. “Now I need to get dressed and then we’ll go have breakfast.” Altair nodded, “And make sure Desmond really left, I don’t want him following us,” he sighed and headed for the back room.

“I don’t know how society parents deal with their kids being around all the damn time. Ours don’t even live near us and they still manage to show up at the most imperfect times and get under foot,” Altair groaned and opened the door to check. Rauf heard Altair telling Desmond, very sternly, and in no uncertain terms, that he was supposed to go back to his hall, while Rauf pulled on fresh clothes that actually fit him. And hid his hickey, which was just as important in his opinion.


	18. It'll all be Fine

Haytham was in Warren’s office, sitting in the chair at his desk, toying with his stylus when the office door opened. He looked at the door cooly as Warren and Lucy walked in. Lucy was excited, practically skipping inside, and didn’t notice Haytham at first. Warren however, did.

“Sir,” he said, barely moving from the door, sensing Haytham’s anger. Haytham did not like being disobeyed, especially by men he gave important tasks. And yet here was Warren.

“Haytham?” Lucy finally noticed him and she wasn’t a dumb girl, she knew Haytham was angry. Good. She’d see the consiquences of her actions now. When Haytham gave an order, he expected it to be obeyed.

“And just where, might I ask, were you two?” he asked, balancing the stylus on it’s tip.

“I showed her the complex,” Warren said, “She’s not anyone important Haytham. Surely she doesn’t need to be confined to two rooms?”

Haytham’s eyes narrowed, “You have no idea,” Haytham got to his feet slowly and Warren looked like he wanted to leave. Warren could boast and strut, but he really was a coward at heart. Though in the wake of a man like Haytham, most men were. “Where did you go?” he asked again, his voice tight.

“I told you-

“Don’t lie to me Warren. It makes it worse for you,” and he noticed now that Lucy had moved back to Warren’s side, half hiding behind him.

Warren straightened, “She wanted to go outside,” he said.

“And so you took her then?”

“I did,” Warren said, “She’s a _little girl_ , Haytham. What could possibly warrent you keeping her locked up in the tower?” he asked.

Poor fool. He had no idea. None of them did. No one knew what this girl was, what she meant, what she could do, what they _all_ could do. Haytham did though, he’d been lucky enough to get the message decyrpted before it had self destructed. It had only played once before unleashing a virus that destroyed any trace of it and lingered in the Abstergo network where Haytham just trying to retype the message had it eating the words back up as he typed. But Haytham knew, he remembered. He hadn’t expected one of them to fall so effortlessly into his lap though, he’d expected to have to look for them, like they were looking for each other.

“It isn’t a matter you need to concern yourself with,” Haytham said, “All you need to do is _obey_ my orders, of which you did not,” he stepped out from behind the desk. “Do you know what you are girl?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said softly, staring right at him with her big, blue, eyes. “More than you do.”

“Then you know _why_ I told you stay in this building,” he slowly walked over to Warren, crossing the vast distance between them in a few steps.

“I wanted to go outside, where there are people,” she said, at least she was more defiant than Warren, actually capable of possessing a backbone. “You can’t keep me here forever.”

He grabbed her by the wrist, making her cry out when he dragged her away from Warren. “Haytham!” Warren cried, “Let her go.”

“You don’t know what’s best for you, girl,” Haytham told her, having pulled her close, she struggled to get away from him. “You wanted to come here, so you will abide by _my_ rules until you’re old enough that I think you can make your own dissisions.”

“Let go of me!” Lucy cried.

“Do you understand me?” Haytham demanded.

“Let go!”

“Do you?”

“No!” she yelled, “No and fuck you!” and her eyes turned gold and before Haytham knew what was happening Lucy had yanked herself from his grip and kicked him, high, in the gut. He doubled over, coughing, not expecting that, or expecting the force her tiny body had been able to exert. He stared at her as she stood there, panting from adrenaline. “Don’t. Fucking touch me!” she yelled.

“You,” but he found he wasn’t angry, rather he was in awe. “You have it,” he said. She swallowed and looked close to crying, but was keeping it back, not wanting to show her weakness in front of him.

“I want to go outside,” her voice cracked.

With a grunt Haytham stood, touching his stomach tenderly to see if he was bruised, it didn’t seem so. “No,” he said.

“Yes.”

“No, and now you not only disobeyed me, you _struck me_.”

“Good,” Lucy hissed, “Someone should be brave enough to hit the mighty Kenway,” she glared at him, tears just behind her eyes, but she refused to let her anger get the better of her.

“Warren,” Haytham said, the old man gave him a look, concerned still, “You may leave,” and he waved a dismissive hand.

“Mr. Kenway I don’t think-

“You may _leave_ , Vidic,” Haytham looked over at him slowly. For a moment he thought the old man would disobey him again, and stay. Then he glanced at Lucy a moment and took a step back. The door closed softly when he left.

“Now,” Haytham said and grabbed Lucy by the arm again, “You’re going to listen to me, girl, and pay attention.”

“Let me go,” she said defiantly. Haytham just squeezed her arm harder, making her whimper.

“I know why you sought me out. I am not a _fool_ like Warren and William are, who believe you to be some mysterious girl who fell out the sky without a trace of where you come from. But _I_ know, and I know that other organizations are looking for you too. Like the Assassins, the Holy Cross, the Exalted Order, the Brotherhood of John, shall I go on?” he demanded.

“No,” she shook her head, and sniffed, terrified of him.

“Abstergo has been kind to you girl. And unlike how they would have I haven’t let Warren and those under him devise a way to crack you open and figure out what makes you work.”

“He wouldn’t,” she whimpered.

“He _would_ ,” Haytham said meanly, “He asked me, shortly after I was made aware of your existance, how far he was allowed to go with his experiments. I forbade him from hurting you. Otherwise he’d have found something, eventually, to cut your skin and open you up so he could poke at your brain and your organs. And if it took him till you were a woman you’d know what he’d be most interested in,” she whimpered again, and was trembling in his grip. “So when I give you an order, I expect it _obeyed_ , because without obediance to me worse things could happen. Is that what you want?”

“No,” and now a few tears finally fell from her eyes, and she was looking at him in absolute terror.

Haytham pulled himself back a little, something tickling his mind. He was a monster for making a child so afraid of him. If his family saw him, if his _father_ saw him, they’d be so ashamed. That was enough to dampen his anger, soothe it somewhat. A part of him felt terrible for his actions. Lucy was only eleven, she didn’t deserve his wrath, she only wanted what all children did.

Haytham hung his head with a sigh when Lucy’s tears didn’t stop, loosening his grip on her arm slightly. He made little girls cry. 

Unthinkingly he hugged her, “I’m sorry, my dear,” he told her and while she didn’t struggle against him, she didn’t seek any comfort he tried to give either. He released her again a moment later and opened the door. Warren was down the hall a few feet, pacing, noticing instantly when Haytham opened the door.

“Sir, I-

“Save it,” Haytham waved him off, “make her stop,” and Warren walked into his office. Upon seeing him Lucy started crying harder and dropped to her knees, covering her face with her hands.

“Lucy,” Warren leaned down but she moved away when he tried to touch her. Haytham just sighed and looked at what he’d done before he made himself leave, to let Warren clean up this mess. What a Monster he was.

—

When the three of them landed in the little airport of the city of Manapos they were the only people on the plane not jetlagged from the cross atlantic flight. The signs in the airport were in French and Spanish and Altair’s written French was rusty, perfect. But they managed to make it to the baggage claim where there were some people holding signs, waiting.

“Might as well be yelling through a megaphone,” Terry grumbled, one of the men was holding a white sign with the Assassin sigel on it.

“I hate society,” Altair agreed. “Bags first, they can wait.”

They didn’t have to wait long before they all were picking up their regulation backpacks, each one full and carefully packed, the contents slightly different, but were otherwise identicle. Finally they approached the man holding the sign.

“Put that down, you’re making us look bad,” Terry said in French, one strap over his shoulder, arms folded.

“Uh, are you the-

“Don’t say it out loud,” Mira rolled her eyes, also switching to French, “Honestly.”

“We are,” Altair said blandly, his spoken French was the best of the three, “Who are you?”

“I’m Tato,” he said, “Master Jock’s driver.”

Mira looked at Altair, “We don’t have to call him Master do we?” Mira asked him in English, “Because we are _so_ not getting paid enough for me to call some twerp Master.”

“We don’t,” he assured her, and then to Tato he said, “Okay, take us to him.”

“If you’d follow me,” and Tato turned and walked towards the exit. They followed him out of the small airport and into a parking garage to a limo with blacked out windows. Altair could tell by how low it sat on its wheels that it was an armored car. Tato unlocked the door and opened it, “Master Jock, your new body guards.”

“The God give me patience,” Terry said when Jock stepped from the limo. He was perhaps sixteen with blonde hair, brown eyes with an androdenous build and face, and wore Manapos fashion to the knives. Manapos fashion was, for the most part, unisex, with long tunics that went to the knees or even the ankles, pants under that. Tato was wearing a similar outfit.

“You’re them?” Jock asked, contempt for all of them. “You don’t look nearly worth the price my father is paying,” he said, snubbing them.

“Altair ibn La’Ahad,” he offered his hand to Jock, “I’ll overlook your comments because your father is overpaying.” Jock looked insulted, but shook Altair’s hand. “These are my associates, Mira Lie and Terry Fletcherson,” Jock shook Terry’s hand and Mira rolled her eyes when he kissed her knuckles. This was going to be a rough job. “We’re supposed to be meeting your father before you, where is he?”

“He couldn’t make it,” Jock said, “Something to do with the Spanish. The idiots have it out for him for some hairbrained reason.”

“Hmm,” Altair said, clearly this kid didn’t know anything interesting.

“Lets go though, my father should be home tonight,” and he got back into the limo.

“Sirs, ma’am,” Tato said as he opened the trunk with a click of a button, “You may wish to stow your bags.”

“Right,” Altair grumbled and the three of them threw their bags into the back of the limo. Tato got into the driver’s seat and they climbed into the back. Mira sat on the opposite side of the car from Jock though the teenager was engaged in his phone, ignoring them. Tato pulled out of the space and drove away from the airport, they all rode in silence.

—

If they hadn’t started their new training regiments Munahid would have been down in the hospital sooner. But as it was Achilles and Rauf were running Alpha through the ringer, unsatified with their personal levels of fitness. Munahid’s body hadn’t been this sore since he was a boy and in training. He cursed Altair and Mira for getting out of it. Though they weren’t really, they’d have to catch up once they got back.

He knocked on Maelin’s door and peered inside when there was no answer. Maelin was lying on the bed, as she usually was, Bo was sitting next to her, holding her hand, talking to her in Korean. He didn’t feel jealous looking at them. More wistful, almost sad. Maelin’s stomach was, relativly, flat. She’d had her baby the night before, via C-section.

“Munahid,” she said, when she noticed him, of course she noticed him.

“I hope I’m not interupting,” he said in his slightly bad German, stepping into the room.

“Not at all,” she said, her German about as bad as his, “We were just talking about what we were going to do once we were home,” and Bo squeezed her hand.

Munahid nodded, I’m sure you’ll be glad to be going home,” he said, closing the door and going over to the bed.

“I am,” she agreed, smiling widely. “Its been so long.”

“I’ve already gotten in contact with the fortress,” Bo’s German was good; prick, “and told them we’ll be returning soon. Once the doctor’s release Maelin,” he smiled at her. No matter how much he wanted to dislike Bo, he couldn’t. Munahid cared about Maelin in the same way someone cared for a bird with a broken wing. Bo loved her, unapologetically. Munahid couldn’t even begin to compare.

“It should be within the next day or so,” she said cheerfully. “Once they’re happy with my… oh what was it Bo?” she patted his arm.

“Your iron,” he said, “Its very low. As is your vitamin D levels-

“Well she has been inside for several months,” Munahid said. “Nothing a little sun won’t cure,” he smiled.

“Yes,” she said and then looked at Bo and said something in Korean. Bo laughed and answered in Korean, she hugged him.

“There is one thing,” Munahid said, “I don’t know if your doctors have mentioned it to you yet.”

“What is that?” Maelin asked.

He hesitated. He knew how much Maelin hated the child, or as she often called it, her _parasite_. “I know it might not mean much to you Maelin,” he said slowly, carefully, “but you had a son.”

Her mouth became tight, “I don’t want to see it,” she said.

“You don’t have to,” he assured her, patting her knee, “But we need your permission to transfer guardianship to someone else.”

“They have it,” she said quickly. “Do I need to sign something?”

Munahid nodded and finally brought up the tablet he’d brought with him. He clicked it open and brought up the file, “Sign here,” he said, handing her a stylus, and pointing.

“This isn’t me signing something bad, right?” she asked.

“No no, of course not,” he said. “This is just, so that in eyes of the fortress, and the FRN government, that you’ve given up rights to your child, to another.” She looked at him, trusting him, not that he was lying, but she couldn’t read the document herself as it was in English. Then she looked back at the tablet.

“Where do I sign again?” she asked.

“Here,” he pointed, she signed. He scrolled down, “Here,” she signed. He scrolled some more, “Here also,” she signed, “and initial-

“What?” she asked, confused.

He chuckled, “Its more of an English thing,” he said, “Write the first letter of your first and last name.”

She stared at him, “But that’s not my name,” she said.

“I know. It makes more sense in English where single characters are just letters. So do something like this,” and he mimicked an M and then a K for her initials. She copied them on the space. “And that’s it,” he said.

She sighed in relief, “That is a weight off my shoulders,” she said.

He nodded, “You were a real trooper,” he told her, “and so strong through this.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“I just came here to do this and check in on you, I need to get back to the Alpha training.”

“Ah, right, they have it on camera,” she said.

He smiled a little, “Yeah. I’ll see you again in a little while,” and he left. He stood outside the door for a few moments to collect himself before straightening his back and heading downstairs to the nursery.

He was surprised when he found Ehan in the nursery as well, on the side where the infants were cared for. All the babies in this part of the nursery were about seventeen months old, except for one, who was in a plastic housing to keep them warm. They were tiny, able to fit in one of Munahid’s hands easily, and kept separate from the other babies. Maelin’s disowned son.

“What are you doing here?” he asked Ehan, going to stand next to his friend, who was looking at the tiny child.

“Maelin sign?”

“She did. Still didn’t answer my question.”

Ehan turned and looked at him, brows furrowed a bit, mouth downturned. Then his face smoothed over, “Not every day my friends become parents,” he said with a smile. He looked back at the baby. “She know?”

“That I adopted her son?” Ehan made a noise in his throat, “No. She doesn’t.”

“Any reason you didn’t tell her?”

“I didn’t want to make it weird,” Munahid said.

“It is weird,” Ehan said, “he’s a Mormon and Korean,” he made a face. “Hopefully he looks more like his mother.”

“Me too,” he nodded.

“Got a name yet?”

“I’ve had like a week to think about it so far, give me some time.”

“You’ll think of something good,” Ehan said. “I… could help you if you wanted?”

“Help me?”

“Pick a name?” Ehan gave him a look, “Knowing you you’ll pick something ridiculous, or embaressing.”

Munahid scowled at him, “I would not. And you’re oftly chatty today. Everything okay?” because Ehan not talking was normal, him talking so much meant something was wrong.

“Fine,” Ehan looked back at the baby in his incubator.

“You sure?” Munahid asked, nudging him. “You only talk a lot when you’re nervous.”

“I’m fine,” Ehan told him.

“Ehan-

“It isn’t anything, lay off,” but putting his need for Munahid to leave him alone made him more interested in what had made Ehan so off.

“Okay,” he said.

They stood in easy silence for a while, Ehan’s silence more comfortable to Munahid than his voice. His friend usually talked softly, or not at all, so to hear it so loud and verbose was a surprise. The quiet said a lot more for Ehan anyway. Munahid didn’t know how long they stood there, until the baby started to fuss and cry. Munahid’s chest ached, knowing he couldn’t go in there. A nurse arrived shortly to calm them and feed him.

“You’ll be fine,” Ehan said.

“Hmm?”

“With him,” he said, staring at the baby.

“Altair said the same,” Munahid said. “I hope so.”

“You do fine with Alpha,” Ehan said.

“Alpha are adults,” Ehan snorted, “Well… okay, for the _most part_ , they’re adults. But I guess you’re right. I mean Jari and Diyari got joined this year and if those two can figure out how to be parents I guess I can too.” He felt Ehan looking at him as he watched the nurse feed his son, “What?” he asked, looking over at Ehan.

Ehan opened his mouth, then closed it. He didn’t say anything, just walked away. The nurse put his son back in his incubator and Munahid looked over his shoulder, Ehan was signing out. He left the glass wall and went to sign out himself. He called an elevator and they boarded it in silence, Munahid didn’t ask where Ehan was going and pressed a button for a sim room level. Whatever was going on with Ehan, he’d work it out, and sooner or later Munahid would get it out of him. Not today that was for sure though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ya'll're so quiet... Nothing to say?


	19. Familiar Faces

The home of Anton Manosov was impressive to say the least. It was a three story villa located in the northern part of Manapos surrounded by lush gardens and had a horse stable. Altair wasn’t happy to see it in the slightest, instead he saw their willing prison for the foreseeable future. He just wanted to go back home and be with his family.

Tato pulled up to the front of the house and opened the door for them. They went first and then Jock came after and didn’t say anything to them, simply marched up the stairs to his home. “How long are we going to be here again?” Terry asked.

“As short a time as possible,” Altair said and rubbed his mouth. Tato brought their bags and they took them. “Is Anton home?” he asked in French.

“He should be,” Tato said, “Henri will be able to help you once inside,” and then he closed all the doors and drove away.

Altair sighed, “Okay, lets go then,” and he trudged up the steps of the Chairman’s home. He didn’t knock and just walked in.

“Uhg,” Mira said, the place was spotless with shiny tile floors and gleaming wood. “This place is going to piss me off,” he said, shouldering past him.

“She okay?” Terry asked to Altair.

“She doesn’t like nature,” Altair shrugged and Terry gave him the oddest look.

“Who are you?” a woman’s voice asked, she wasn’t attractive in any way though and Altair wondered who’d messed up her genetics so badly. She was short, squat, and had a crooked nose with a large birthmark on her face. Without the birthmark Altair could have called her at least interesting but birthmarks were seen as deformities on Assassins. They were easy to distinguish marks, thusly, undesirable.

“We’re Jock’s new security,” Altair said, “We’re here to see Anton.”

“Master Anton is presently in a meeting,” she said. “Shall I tell him you’ve arrived?”

“Yes,” Altair said. She nodded and left.

They hung around the foyer of a few minutes, inspecting all the things. It was expensive, and Altair was used to expensive. Often Alpha was sent to powerful peoples homes for all sorts of things. Sometimes to guard, other times to extort or even just to be present for the signing of things. 

It wasn’t like the Assassins were unknown to the world governments. They knew they existed, a private army that was highly trained and experts at what they did, and what they did was _everything_. Their presence at a function also carried considerable weight and when a treaty or agreement was signed a representative of their army was almost always there. Only watching, never participating, but always there a silent reminder of their existence and that if nothing else _they_ would uphold the laws written by the treaty and those who broke it would not find the Assassins their friends.

The people knew almost nothing of them. Sometimes they’d appear on TV with a politician, standing next to them, a message to those who knew. But that was it. They were secret, hidden, and when they appeared in their full body armor it was without sigels or brands or markings and they didn’t ever stop and speak to the public, or to cameras except to say something like ‘the situation is under control’ or where to go to be safe. Nothing else. That was the point of them. They watched, furthered their own agenda for peace and security with contracts, and didn’t involve themselves with the turmoil of cross continent politics. What they were and where they based themselves was kept strictly secret. To be known was to invite unwanted attention to them and their ways, which many would frown upon. Or their enemies would know where they lived, where their children were raised and put them in danger. Most Assassins would rather die before putting their children at risk.

“Oh fantastic,” Mira said, drawing Altair from his musings while he looked at a great painting of Anton, his wife, and his son.

“What?”

“That’s Finn Mettric,” she picked up a picture from a side table and showed it to Altair and Terry. “He’s a Gilded Father in the Brotherhood of John,” she grimaced, since Finn was sharing the photo with Anton, arm around Anton’s shoulder, the both of them grinning. The Brotherhood of John was an organization in England, the extremely conservative and right England, that had been created by a man named John Harrisberg. He also went by the name John the Purifyer by members of the Brotherhood and the more extreme sides of the English society, about a hundred and fifty years ago. They were extremely xenophobic and anti-Semitic but oddly not white sepremeists like some societies in Russia or Greece and had a lot of power in the English Parliament. 

The Brotherhood had also been trying to find the European fortress for about seventy years because the Assassins had been incredibly active in England before the fortress had fallen, trying to undermine the Brotherhood’s destructive ways and liberate the British Isles (but not Ireland, they’d effectively pushed the British back during the Collapse and the English had been glad to cut off the dead weight that Ireland had become). While they didn’t know for sure, it was assumed that the Brotherhood _had_ eventually found the fortress and then sent other organizations who also hated the Assassins on them which had led to the fall. Nothing could be proved though since apparently no one was taking claim to the destruction of the fortress in the twenty years since.

“Suspect number one,” Terry said idly.

“Target?” Mira asked Altair.

“Not yet. We don’t know if Finn was involved.”

“He’s a Golden Father, they’re always involved,” Mira said, placing the picture back down, face down on the counter.

Altair turned when he heard footsteps. It was Anton. “Excuse my terrible manners for not coming to get you at the airport,” he said in reasonably good English and came to shake Altair’s hand.

“Its fine,” Altair said. “Altair ibn La’Ahad, head of security detail.”

“Pleasure, absolute pleasure,” Anton said, unlike his son he had a kind face and gentle voice. He was also old. Him and his wife had had Jock via a surrogate since Natasha and Anton had decided to have children too late to be healthy for her or the baby. Altair had read their files on the way over. Jock was about as perfectly genetically engineered as they came, even Assassins weren’t as well bred. Anton was normal and Altair knew he’d like working for the man. Usually Manapos Chairmans weren’t this good, most were just figureheads for the Senate. Anton actually _did_ something.

“Terry Fletherson, sir,” Terry said, moving to shake Anton’s hand as well.

“Mira Lie,” Mira said with her best, sweet, smile.

“Quite a bunch you are,” Anton said, “An Arab, an Englishman and a German walk into a Chairman’s villa and if that isn’t the start of a wonderful joke I don’t know what is,” and he laughed. Altair just smiled.

“Our kind are all sorts,” Altair said.

“Yes yes,” Anton said nodding slowly.

“We know our main objective is your son’s protection,” Altair started, “and yours and your wife’s as well when permitted. We’re going to need to see your security system-

“We don’t have one,” Anton cut in. “Manapos is not like America, Altair,” and fuck there was that fucking tone that made Altair hate Manapals. It was a sort of self superior tone like he knew what was the best and right way and that everyone else was an idiot. “But here in Manapos we are truthful, respectful, and good. There is no theft in Manapos.”

“Yes, of course. So then we shouldn’t worry about finding that data cube the Spanish insist you stole from them and are threatening war on you with,” Altair said flatly and watched Anton’s face go slack. “If that’s the case I’ll just send Mira home.”

“Oh _please_ tell me I can One,” Mira whined.

“Now lets get to the nitty gritty Anton. You hired the three of us because you’re scared, which you know, is understandable. The Spanish Empire’s a big deal and Manapos doesn’t have many friends since you think you’re better than everyone else. As your new head of security I’m telling you you’re getting a security system. My associates and I will also need copies of all the keys to the doors in the house including personal bedrooms, studies, and offices. I’d also like to get a floor plan of the villa, one that includes all the secret rooms and passages you probably have that aren’t on the public record. 

“Also never talk to me or my associates like that again. You might be paying us but the Assassins do not normally get involved with this sort of political bullshit. But since you insisted on paying for the best the world has to offer you’re going to listen to what I have to say, because I _am_ the best the Assassins have to offer this side of the Prime Meridian. Do we have an understanding?”

Anton wasn’t staring, but he did seem surprised Altair had just said all that. Altair had been perfectly pleasant though, frank, to the point but not mean or rude. He was asserting himself because an active Manapos Chairman was used to just walking all over everyone and to hell what others thought of him. That wasn’t going to fly with Altair. “I see,” he said. “You do mean business don’t you?”

“Our mission is to protect your son and if possible find the stolen data cube and return it to the Spanish. The best defense is a preemptive defense.”

“Very well. You obviously seem to know what you’re doing so I won’t get in your way. I have no idea what security systems are good so pick whichever one you think is best. I’ll have keys made and the blueprint delivered,” he said.

“Thank you Chairman,” Altair said. “We’d like to start immediately. If you could show us where we’ll be staying me and my associates will begin figuring out what you need.”

“Of course. Follow me,” and Altair picked his back pack up and the three of them followed Anton deeper into the Villa.

—

Sometimes you just needed to get away. Australia, for all its advancements, wasn’t paradise by any means. They were an extremely cyber heavy continent though, and totally green, unlike some countries that still burned oil or coal. There hadn’t been war, or conflict in over three hundred years. Though that was also partly because people who _might_ have caused trouble just… disappeared. No one knew where and no one mentioned it.

There was very much a hand of purpose working in Australia, keeping them safe, and quiet. Though who that hand was Cain had no idea. But he wasn’t exactly in the business to find out either. If he needed to know he’d learn it he was sure. Till then he’d worry about himself and when his country seemed _too_ perfect he’d go out in his ORV and drive out into the outback with some camping gear and forget about what happened in society.

This time he’d made camp under some trees, near a half dried up water hole. He could see kangaroos in the distance, heading for a copes of trees some ways off to spend the night. The sun was setting to his left and he was making himself dinner. Mostly vegetables and something he’d managed to catch and kill because call Cain whatever you wanted but he was a survivor to his core. He also knew how to cook anything. His father had shown him how to survive. 

His dad had been a _weird_ guy. Weird even by Australian standard. He’d known _everything_. He knew how to hunt and how to fight and could do huge figures in his head and spoke four languages mostly fluently including one aboriginal dialect. He even knew how to _shoot a gun_ , and his dad wasn’t anything. He’d worked at an office most of his life, worked as a desk jockey. Senior desk jockey though, with a bunch of people under him. But he wasn’t a cop or a member of the military, he shouldn’t have had those skills. But he did. Cain didn’t know how, but he did. His dad was dead though now, him and his mum.

His mum and dad had been special. They’d _resonated_ , and not just on any level that some people did, but they’d _really_ resonated. Cain had been a natural birth, no AWC or anything had had any hand in his creation. When he’d been young it’d been a big deal, first live natural birth in fifty years. Everyone in Sydney had known his name. Then they’d moved to Melbourne and no one had known, or given a shit.

They were both gone though. His mum had been weak while he grew up. Women weren’t used to having babies anymore. Later complications from his birth had raised their head when he was about five and she’d died. His dad had lasted till he’d graduated college and lived on his own without support before shooting himself in the head. His note had been short, and slightly cryptic, ‘I love you more than anything. Don’t let them know.’ He still didn’t know what that was about.

So now it was just him, on his own, and he was fine with that. He didn’t really resonate with anyone. Which he was also fine with. He didn’t need anyone. He had himself. 

Cain cooked his meal over an open flame, watching the meal sizzle in the pan. He was nearly done when he saw something out of the corner of his eye and turned. He stared. It was a kid! Kinda tall, gangly, sunburnt all over and wearing white clothes and thin shoes. A mop of blonde hair completed him. They were staring at him, no not him, at his food.

“Uh… hello?” Cain said.

“Hello,” the kid said, staring longingly at the food.

“Are you okay?”

“I think I’m lost,” he said.

“Where are your parents?” Cain finally got up and went over to the kid who didn’t shrink or pull away. They looked up at him and Cain saw he was horribly dehydrated and wasn’t even sweating in the early evening heat. “C’mon, lets get you some water,” and he propelled the kid to his camp and sat him down putting a nalgene into his hands. The kid chugged and Cain took the bottle away before he was half way done.

“Hey!” he complained.

“You’ll hurt yourself drinking cold water that fast,” Cain scolded him.

“But, but,” the blonde reached for it but Cain held the bottle out of reach.

“Small sips,” he told sternly before giving the bottle to him. The kid gladly took it and Cain watched to make sure he didn’t chug. The kid sipped slowly, looking at Cain for the slightest hint Cain would take the water away again.

Cain went back to his dinner to make sure it hadn’t burned. They were both silent for a few minutes as Cain finished preparing dinner, then he took it off the fire and sat on the side of his fire, the kid at an angle to him, holding the big nalgene to his chest. “So, you got a name, kid?” Cain asked.

“Daniel,” he said in a quiet tone.

“You got any parents, Daniel?” After a second Daniel shook his head. “No parents? At all?” he squinted at Daniel.

“I did,” Daniel said. “But they sent me away.”

“Hmmm… You hungry?” and Daniel nodded. Cain sliced up the meat and made two plates on pieces of metal he’d formed specifically for the purpose. He was good with his hands, did a lot of stuff the way people used to do it, after the Collapse when they’d suffered a brief Dark Age and everyone had to be retaught how everything worked. Real metalworking and smithing had been a big thing for about two generations before industry came back. He gave Daniel some of the meat, wild goat he’d trapped, taken what he wanted and left for the dingos and foxes, and the veggies, potatoes, tomatoes, and some corn he’d brought with him from society.

Daniel ate in silence, eating slowly, sensing that eating quickly would get him scolded by Cain. And he was right so the kid was smart at least. The fire cracked between them, the sun set and the stars were amazing overhead. Couldn’t get a view like this back in Adelaide.

“Where are your parents?” Cain asked once Daniel was more done with his food.

“No here,” Daniel said.

“Well I know that. But _where_ are they?”

“Not here,” Daniel said.

“You can’t answer my question with the same answer. What happened to them? Are they looking for you?”

“I left them behind,” Daniel said, looking at Cain from across the fire with the intensity a kid his age shouldn’t be able to have. “And they aren’t. They told me to go, so I did.”

“Where are you from?”

“Uluru.”

Cain paused, “Wait, wait wait wait _wait_. You’re telling me you walked from Ayers Rock, to here?” Daniel nodded. “Bullshit.”

“Just because you can’t do what I do doesn’t make me bullshit,” Daniel said, staring at him. “I’m already impossible. Doing impossible things is child’s play.”

Cain squinted at Daniel, what a weird kid. He sighed, “Okay, you know what, fine; whatever,” he said. “In the morning I’m driving the both of us to Port Augusta,” looked like he was canceling his trip early. Not like he hadn’t spent two weeks planning it or had to ask for time off work six weeks in advance or anything. Damnit he’d barely been out here four days and he was going home. “The police will deal with you,” he frowned. Daniel said nothing.

“Can I have some more?” Daniel asked and held out his empty plate. Cain put the rest of the veggies and some more of the goat on the metal for him. Cain busied himself with cleaning up his camp, packing up most of his gear into his ORV. He was going to go to sleep now to get an early start tomorrow. Cain was getting out his sleeping pallet when Daniel asked, “What’s your name?”

Cain turned and looked at the kid, “Cain,” he said.

“Cain what?”

“Barrows. Cain Barrows.”

“Nice to meet you,” Daniel said, getting to his feet, “and you might want to duck,” Daniel was looking at something over Cain’s shoulder in the darkness.

Cain ducked and something whizzed over his head. He scrambled away from whatever it was and turned, coming face to face with what looked like a robot. A humanoid robot, or rather, three of them. It took him a second to realize they weren’t robots, but rather humans in some sort of advanced body armor that covered their entire bodies like some sort of strange exoskeleton, and a helmet with a faceless visage. The body armor seemed to shift color with the firelight, flickering through shades to stay more or less invisible. Active camo. Each of the people held a weapon, two with swords, one had a dagger, all made of carbon and probably lethally sharp. Worst part was they all looked like they knew how to use them.

Cain felt Daniel come up next to him and press against his side as the four stepped properly into the fire light. “Give us the boy, and no one will get hurt here,” one of them said, but it was impossible to see who, as the helmets covered their entire head.

“Who the fuck are you?” Cain asked.

“None of your concern. Give us the boy.”

Cain looked down at Daniel, who was staring at the four with wide eyes, but was holding onto Cain’s shirt tightly. “Why? What are you going to do with him?” Cain asked.

“That is none of you concern.”

“Like fuck it is! You were going to kill me-

“Knock you out. Now give us the boy before we use force,” they said.

“No,” Cain put himself between them and Daniel though that was probably a stupid move. But he had enough paternal instinct to not want to let these people anywhere near a child who clearly didn’t want to go with them. They said nothing. “Go away,” he said.

Then he felt a tug on his shirt. Not now Daniel, he wanted to say. But then he felt like he was about to be dragged and turned in time to see a forth armored person had snuck up behind them and grabbed Daniel, hand over his mouth so he couldn’t scream. Cain twisted and grabbed Daniel’s arms and pulled. The person hadn’t been expecting the force Cain could put behind him and Daniel tumbled into his arms and against his chest.

After that it was like they were on them like wolves.

Cain’s father had taught him to fight. Growing up he’d learned to protect himself and it had helped him scare off more than one mugger and protect himself from bullies or get out of bar fights. But this was something else entirely. He could defend himself a bit but these guys moved like smoke and it took only a few jabs before he was hurled to the ground with a groan.

“Let me go!” Daniel cried, and Cain looked up to see they’d picked Daniel up by the waist. “Let me go right now!” she shrieked.

“Please calm down we aren’t going to hurt you,” one of the helmeted people said.

“Let me go! Put me down! Fuck you let me go!” and he kicked in the air wildly. Cain tried to get to his feet but someone kicked him so hard in the stomach his pre Collapse ancestors would have felt it and he rolled over onto his back in agony. His eyes opened a little and he came face to face with the tip of a sword. “No! Leave him alone!” and he heard Daniel smacking the armor the men wore. Daniel screamed in wordless frustration at being completely powerless in the situation.

Then someone knocked Daniel out because he stopped struggling and yelling and Cain was barely aware. He hurt all over and he was probably about to die here. Something told him the people were conversing inside their helmets, but he couldn’t hear them. He didn’t doubt they would kill him. He hoped they got it over with. Long drawn out deaths weren’t his thing.

A decision was clearly made and the sword came down and cut his throat. Cain blacked out before he bled to death.


	20. Happiness Guaranteed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fair warning. I _really_ do not like the manapos arc I started. Its like reason #1 I stalled on this story. So, it’s gonna get a messy, unsatisfying, wrap up /shrugs loudly
> 
> Also some things might be… shifted around a bit in this story in ways you probably won’t notice unless you reread and have an eye for dumb bullshit (like me) but make for an overall more consistant world (if not story OTL)

Rauf and Achilles spent a lot of time together in general. As Achilles taught the tenth level and Rauf the ninth Achilles always reviewed Rauf’s notes both before and after the rollover and sent him messages most often after that time to ask questions about his new students. Rauf did the same thing to Paula who taught the eighth level.

Since Rauf and Achilles had been recruited by Altair to train Alpha though he and Achilles had seen each other more. In fact every time they didn’t have classes or were in their rooms they were planning and plotting how to kick Alpha’s ass. Alpha for their part was miserable, as they should be.

Rauf was in his classroom with Achilles. They were designing a new scenario for them. Achilles was at the podium, too frail to walk around like Rauf did, sitting. Rauf was in the scenario with his tablet shifting things around as needed.

“So if we have to make them go down this hallway here,” Rauf was saying, “then they’ll be boxed in and need an escape route.”

“I like ducts,” Achilles said.

“Then we’d have to make sure there’s a patrol under the ducts that can hear them if they’re too loud.” Meaning they’d have to move quietly and softly to go through them. “Though I don’t know if Chris, Muna, and Ehan could do it,” he added.

“Then two escape routes maybe?” Achilles asked. “We know they won’t leave each other, so this’ll have to be more subtle. No guard patrols though.”

“What about a secret door? Maybe behind this bookshelf?” Rauf tapped in a command and a bookshelf appeared in the generic study he’d made. The scenario was to rescue a woman on the top floor of a large town house without being detected. Detection was instant ‘death’ for the entire squad. The guards in the simulation were Assassin level AI, and were extremely observant and lethal. It would push Alpha to an edge they hadn’t before. Rauf waved his hand at the book shelf and it slid away and showed a tunnel, he had to duck a little to get through it but for the big guys in Alpha they’d have to stoop or crawl.

“Too easy though,” and the tunnel Rauf had been in narrowed and shortened into a gap between walls. “This is better.”

“Too narrow,” and Rauf widened the crawl space so he could walk. “Being decisive and good at thinking shouldn’t be a punishment.”

“Right.” A light appeared on Rauf’s tablet, announcing that someone was requesting entrance to his classroom. “Are you expecting anyone?” Rauf asked, they’d been working through lunch so they could have this scenario ready in the next day or so.

“No,” Achilles said.

Rauf brought up the video feed from the camera outside the room. It was one of his students. He walked out of the simulation, towards the podium. “Its a student.”

“Should we let them in?”

“It might be important,” Rauf said.

“One of yours, or mine?” Achilles asked as Rauf unlocked the door.

“Mine. He’ll probably make Charlie when he comes back, demolition,” Rauf said, barely paying attention, he was fiddling with the secret hallway.

“What can we do for you, novice?” Achilles asked the teenager. Rauf glanced up briefly as the novice came over to the podium nervously.

“I uh, wanted to talk to Master Rauf,” Yusuf said. Yusuf was a nice young man. Charming, would be handsome in a few years and had a crooked nose from when it’d been broken in the forth level. He didn’t really like swords, or guns. No Yusuf liked blowing shit up. Rauf had brought in special teachers from Charlie to teach him since Rauf didn’t know a lot about explosives. It was a lot of chemistry more than anything. Unfortunate since Yusuf wasn’t very good at math.

“Yes, what is it?” Rauf asked, looking away from his tablet now to look at Yusuf. He looked terribly nervous.

“I uh— could I have a word alone Master?” he asked.

Rauf pursed his lips a moment in thought, “Sure. Just a moment Achilles,” and he guided Yusuf away from the podium. They walked through the pretend house till they were more or less alone. Rauf knew Achilles wouldn’t snoop. He was a wily old man but he wasn’t a busy body. “What is it?” he asked Yusuf mildly though he had a good guess what this was about.

Yusuf played with his hands a moment nervously. “Uh— Well I—“ his face became a few shades redder before he just blurted it out, “I like you.”

Rauf smiled gently. That’d been what he’d expected Yusuf to say honestly. Confessions were common in the Fortress from both boys and girls. They spent so much time together and some of them felt resonance for each other. Usually resonance was enough of a confession. Other times it was like the traditional crush like this. This wasn’t the first time Rauf had ever been confessed to by a novice either. They were at that age where they started to have feelings. Boys and girls were kept separate for obvious reasons once they were this age. Parents were protective of their children and wanted to know they were focused on their studies to become Assassins, not being distracted by the opposite sex.

It wasn’t fool proof of course. There were homosexuals amid the Assassins. About a quarter of all Assassins were non heterosexual. Fooling around in general was frowned upon though, by any combination. Novices were expected to train and learn. Once they went on their pilgrimage they could have all the sex they wanted. Easier said than done and Rauf knew plenty of sex went on in the upper levels of the novice halls between the eighth, ninth, and tenth levels. Everyone was just hush hush about it like the adults didn’t remember. Very little could stop two horny teenagers from going at it if they were into each other. It was even harder with those that resonated. Resonating novices were often kept on different floors with access to elevators and doors suspended at night. But bless the higher ups, they did try and at least to keep the novice halls orderly. Most novices were good about it too, knowing they’d have their chance to act out in a few years. At least that was what they told their parents.

There were parents who didn’t care what their children did either, or who’d never wanted to be joined. Children of forced joinings for the sake of the Order often behaved the best, projecting onto their instructors. Some even convinced themselves they had resonance with those they did. It was sort of awful, the cycle of minor neglect by the parents. Instructors and friends took the role as family and any adult who gave more than a passing interest could find themselves with a novice wanting to impress them. It happened uncommonly but it did happen.

Yusuf was one of those children. He was a good kid. Smart, kind, gentle when he needed to be but absolutely brutal when he had to be with a keen eye and mind and a smart alec tongue. He was ranked one in Rauf’s class and an ‘orphan’ amid his peers. His parents had been forcibly joined for breeding reasons and neither had wanted him when he’d come out of his AWC.

“Yusuf,” Rauf said, letting him down easy, “I’m flattered but it’d never come to anything.”

Yusuf was so red he looked about to burst into flames, he looked so embarrassed and nervous and now heart broken. “W-why not?” Yusuf asked, swallowing.

“Well for starters, I already have a partner. I love him very much, and I love our son.” He saw Yusuf stiffen. Rauf didn’t talk about his personal life very much. When he came to work it was to work. He was a teacher, and a trainer. He tried hard to not let personal feelings affect him, especially not around impressionable novices. They also didn’t need to know. What Rauf did outside of the classroom was none of their business. “You’re also so young. Even if I didn’t have a partner I couldn’t do that to you. You should find someone your own age. I have nothing for you.”

“I see,” Yusuf said, but his voice was thick and he sounded pained. “Sorry for disturbing you,” and he left quickly. Rauf watched him go with a frown. He hated having to do that to his students. Most of them always meant well. They were always the ones he gave a bit more attention. Not because they were special, but because they required more of him, required being pushed harder. They always made the top squads: Alpha, Beta, Charlie, Delta. He’d never had a novice who confessed to him place below Delta. They all perceived that additional help as interest. Maybe because they were all ‘orphans’. Their parents never wanted them, but their instructors doted on them, expected things from them, were proud of them. Most just wanted someone to be there and be proud of them, to love them like their parents hadn’t no matter how many other adults in their life did.

Rauf knew the feeling. His parents hadn’t wanted him or his half brother either. He’d never confessed to his instructor but for a while he’d had a crush on D1. At least until he’d met Altair. Then it was like no one else had or would exist again. That was what resonance did to people. It just erased anyone else. There was someone out there for everyone. Yusuf would find his, just like Rauf had. Hopefully he’d find them in the fortress and not in society as the fortress would loathe to lose what Yusuf could offer them in talent and ability.

He went back to Achilles, “What was that about?” the old man asked.

“A confession.”

“Ah,” Achilles said, “Don’t get much of those anymore,” he said with a wry smile. Rauf chuckled.

“No, old man, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

“Watch it,” Achilles growled good naturally.

Rauf smiled, “Shall we continue?”

“Yes, lets get this over with. I want to make my class run it before we give it to Alpha. If they pass its too easy. If they reach the woman it’s too easy. If they get killed ten feet into the house, then we’ll give it to Alpha.”

“And they thought their stress test was cruel and unusual punishment,” Rauf smirked.

“They have _no_ idea,” Achilles said, leaning on his cane. Rauf went back out into the house with his tablet and they continued to work on the simulation.

—

Despite the shower Munahid still smelled like sweat and a workout. Water and soap really only did so much. At least he was presentable for his appointment and didn’t smell like a dirty gym sock. After the heat training Rauf and Achilles had made them go through, training in over a hundred degree heat, the entire squad had smelled like dirty gym sock. And that was _after_ they’d crawled out of the sim room acting like they were dying.

Children.

Munahid fidgeted in the elevator as it went down down down to the nursery. Then the elevator dinged and the door opened. He walked out and signed in before going to the AWC side where the infants were kept. A couple was there, pouring over a book of baby names. The nursery had about fifty of them in this little room for browsing purposes for new parents. He ignored them and the books, walked to the door on the side and knocked hesitantly. He had to wait a minute but the door opened revealing a nurse wearing a clean white uniform.

“Yes?” they asked.

Munahid cleared his throat and reminded himself he was second in command of Alpha. He had no reason to be nervous. He still was. “Munahid Jarvis,” he said, voice actually cracking a little. He swallowed. “I have an appointment."

They looked at something by the door. “Ah, yes, here you are, come in,” they beckoned and Munahid entered, feeling more at ease. “Everyone’s been very excited about him,” she said.

“Oh?” Munahid asked, following the nurse to where the infants were kept. At the far end were the babies who’d be taken out of the nursery soon and were nearly old enough to be in the main nursery at fourteen months of age, nearly old enough to walk and talk but that wouldn’t happen till the end of the Season. The ones closest to Munahid’s own son were about four months. Munahid looked upon the children, they would probably be his son’s class, being closest in age to him. At least if he wasn’t weak and would be held back till the current Season’s class.

“Everyone loves when we get new babies,” she smiled at Munahid. “He also brings genetic diversity to the fortress. The geneticist are all abuzz about him, they can’t wait till he grows up.”

“Of course,” Munahid nodded, a felt a bit proud. The real fear with a semi closed system like the fortress was not enough genetic diversity in their people, so while outsiders were treated with suspicion any children they brought into the fortress were celebrated. The destruction of the European fortress had been a genetic relief to the North American fortress, as now there were even more people who weren’t related to one another.

The nurse opened the plastic housing containing his son and picked him up, cooing. There was a monitor attached to his tiny finger and a wire stuck to his chest but otherwise he was normal. And of course, he was tiny. “Here he is, sir,” she said. She nodded at the chair next to the housing and Munahid sat obediently.

“I’ve never held a baby before,” he admitted.

“Its alright, I’ll be right here,” she assured him and gently transferred the infant to him. “Support his head- yes just like that, and keep him tucked close to your body. Perfect, you’re a natural, sir,” she beamed at him.

Munahid only half heard her at the end. His new son was so small. His entire torso was barely the size of Munahid’s hand. He was naked except for a diaper and a hat to keep his head warm and in Munahid’s hands he wiggled a little. Munahid’s chest swelled, his heart suddenly feeling far too big for his ribs.

“Have you decided on a name for him?” the nurse’s voice cut through his thoughts.

“Huh? Uh, I think so,” Munahid said.

The nurse clapped a little, excitedly, “Great. What is it? I’ll put it in his file.”

“Si’u,” Munahid said.

“And how do you spell that? With a W? An H?” he knew she was just asking to make sure it was correct since it wasn’t Arabic, or English, which most of the fortress names were, the nurses and doctors all knew how to figure those out for the most part. But there weren’t many asians in the fortress, and none that had been born here. He spelled it for her. “Do you want to add the Hangul spelling as well?” she asked.

“Ah— yes,” he nodded.

“Alright then. Do you have the characters or am I asking too many questions right now?” she teased gently.

“I’ll come back with those,” he said sheepishly. He hadn’t even thought of that. Bo and Maelin were leaving soon though. He wouldn’t ask Maelin, she might freak out, but Bo was a level headed guy. He’d probably help Munahid figure it out. Korean was one of the languages Munahid knew but that didn’t mean he knew everything about it and he knew you could form his son’s name dozens of different ways.

“Alright. I’ll leave you two alone till your time is up,” she said brightly.

“Thank you,” Munahid nodded. The nurse nodded and then left them alone. The glass in front of Munahid had been made opaque to give him and Si’u some privacy since there wasn’t a lot in the nursery. It was supposed to be a place parents could come see their children through the big window.

Munahid looked down at his son. Si’u squirmed in his hands and he smiled. “You’re going to grow up to be so big and strong,” Munahid whispered and stroked his son’s tiny head. “Just like your momma.” Si’u made a noise that was half whine half squeak and Munahid smiled. If nothing else Ehan and Altair had both been right. He’d do just fine with this.

—

The cybernetics division was located on floor seventy-one. Diyari had never been, till today. Two months ago cybernetic technicians had come and measured him for his new arm and foot, measuring everything to the micrometer so it would be exactly the size Diyari needed and no bigger or smaller so he wouldn’t experience unbalanced sensations while walking or standing.

In society prosthetics came in standard sizes and those sizes were designed to fit a variety of people within that size group. For those people hands and feet that were millimeters and micrometers off were fine. They also usually weren’t doing things Assassins were doing. For them there was no ‘standard size’ for a prosthetic. It was a custom fit and the fit was _exact_.

Diyari would have been a lot more nervous about coming to this floor if Jari wasn’t with him, pushing his wheel chair. The doctors had wanted a nurse to go with him instead but they’d put their foot down. Or rather, Jari had basically begged Rauf to pull rank and tell them they weren’t going and Jari was. Diyari didn’t hate his doctors, he was friends with most of them, had trained with the younger ones even. But just just didn’t want them with him for this. He wanted his boyfriend. Thankfully Rauf had been understanding and pulled rank. They all knew if Altair had been there he’d have done it himself.

They arrived at the office and Jari dealt with the receptionist, who could have been a robot. It was the cybernetics division. They didn’t have to wait and the engineer came out from the hall. “Hello,” he said, not cheerfully but also not dour. He shook Jari’s hand and then Diyari’s, “I’m Cipriano Enu, I built your new arm,” he said, smiling a bit at Diyari. Cipriano was black, which was weird. Weird because the Assassins were very much ‘middle’ as far as skin tone went. Not white, not black, but a nice range of tan to dark brown that fit into every ethnic group in the NCC. Cipriano wasn’t that. He was _black_ , like, very black. Like probably had a parent who was from society black. It was sort of a novelty, and it was really cool. Diyari didn’t know any black people (or white or asian people of that matter) so the fact that his cyborg doctor was black was pretty cool.

“Cool,” Diyari said.

“C’mon, we’ll go take a look and see about getting you fitted,” he beckoned and Jari wheeled Diyari after Cipriano.

“See, told you it’d be exciting,” Jari said and took one hand off the chair for a second to squeeze Diyari’s shoulder. Diyari nodded and Cipriano showed them into his work area. The place was clean and orderly with metal countertops and bins for screws, bolts, microchips, hinges, and small samples. Spools of wire the color of the rainbow were hung on a rod on one wall. A shelf held a variety of books about engineering and cybernetics and biology and another held prosthetics ranging from eyeballs to delicate hands of children.

“So,” Cipriano said and pulled out a box from under one of his work tables. “It still needs to be skinned but this is just the first fitting and detailing orientation.” He popped the lid on the box and pulled out Diyari’s new arm. It was a fully exposed metal mechanism like something out of a crazy nightmare. Every wire was visible and held in bunched by some sort of clip, hugging the frame of the arm like muscles. Diyari swallowed. Cipriano set the arm down gently and then pulled out the foot which just looked like a mass of wires and metal.

“So when he gets the final one it’ll have a covering, right?” Jari asked. “Like skin?”

“If that’s what you want,” Cipriano said with a shrug, putting the foot next to the arm, closed the box and put it away. “It can look like whatever you want it to look like. An old Foxtrot lost his leg a few years ago. He wanted his new one metallic magenta for some reason,” Cipriano scratched his head a bit at that. “Never understood why. I think he lost a bet or something.”

“Yeah, sounds like it,” Jari agreed with a grin.

“I’m going to need you to remove your shirt and socks,” Cipriano said. “We’ll make this as unannoying as possible,” he promised.

“Okay,” Diyari said slowly.

“The actual prosthetic will involve the surgery, I know your doctor’s talked to you about that,” Cipriano said airily, as thought discussing the weather. The surgery would be to literally install a sort of docking mechanism at the base of Diyari’s arm and ankle that would allow full bonding of he cybernetic prosthetic to his nervous system so he could fully and freely control his new limbs.

“Yes,” Jari said and Diyari was grateful he was doing the talking as he was having trouble finding his voice amid all this. “And what do you expect the integration rate to be with his new limbs?”

“Well if he wears them everyday for the most of the day then I don’t see it taking more than a few weeks. But if he’s like some of my patients and only wears them when he wants it could be months. Your brain is forming new connections using your prosthetics so its important to repeatedly use them so your brain knows what to do to move your new foot and arm.”

“Don’t worry, he will,” Jari assured him. “We’re both field agents.”

“Oh good,” Cipriano nodded.

“Need help?” Jari asked Diyari gently, he hadn’t removed his shirt as requested. He was honestly sort of frozen. Diyari looked at Jari and swallowed. “Uh, could you give us a second, Enu?” he asked the engineer.

“Yeah, of course,” and Cipriano left.

Jari came and knelt in front of him. “Everything okay, D,” he said and rubbed Diyari’s knees and thighs comfortingly. “We talked about this, remember?”

Diyari nodded. “I know I just-

“I know. Its scary,” Jari got up a little to kiss Diyari on the lips. “But I’m right here. Nothing is going to happen. Cipriano just wants to help you and the rest of Alpha is excited _for_ you too. They keep teasing me about the whole racing stripes thing,” he grinned.

Diyari’s lips twitched into a smile. “Okay,” he nodded.

“Lemmie help,” Jari said. Diyari nodded again and Jari helped Diyari take off his shirt so he was just in a sleeveless undershirt. Self consciously he reached across to grab his amputated arm. Not at the end but a bit up. Jari didn’t even see or comment and just hunkered back down to undo the knot at the end of his leg and roll his pant leg up. He pulled off the sock from his amputated ankle and when he stood up he eased Diyari’s hand from his arm and peeled off the protective sleeve there as well. Diyari fidgeted in his wheel chair, madly uncomfortable with Jari there, seeing him so damaged. “Alright, you ready for Cipriano to come back in?”

“I don’t know,” Diyari said weakly.

“Well he doesn’t have to come back inside till you’re ready,” Jari said and stayed right in front of him, squatting, his hands on Diyari’s thighs. “There’s nothing weird about getting a new hand. It can look just like your old one.” Diyari nodded but said nothing. “Think of it like this,” Jari said. “The sooner we get done here the sooner you can get the surgery and then finally fitted and you’ll get to come back to Alpha.”

“I wanna go back to Alpha,” Diyari admitted quietly.

“Well you can’t come back and show Altair and everyone else your cool new arm until this is over—! D, I thought you were done with the whole crying stuff!” Jari exclaimed.

“I’m not,” Diyari said stubbornly and rubbed his eyes with a sniff. “I just love you so much.”

Jari laughed, “Is that all silly?” Diyari nodded, smiling and rubbing his other eye. “Can I call Cipriano back in?” Diyari nodded. “Good, you’re so strong for all this, D,” and he kissed Diyari again before hopping to his feet and going to look outside. Cipriano followed him back inside.

“So we ready for the fitting?” Cipriano said.

“Yeap,” Jari said.

“Alright then,” and Cipriano took up the prosthetic foot. Thank the God. Diyari was feeling better but the idea of that mechanical arm attached to him still freaked him out too much. Cipriano must have known that and chosen the smaller one instead.

Cipriano pulled a stool over and sat in front of Diyari and pulled his leg up. “So right now we’re just making sure its flush with your skin,” he explained. “Now, it is gonna be kinda cold, when its done there will be a skinex material instead of this metal.” Diyari had to close his eyes when Cipriano put the foot up to his severed ankle. It was cold and he shivered and felt little pins poking the tender scar tissue.

“Uh, are there pins?” Diyari asked.

“Yeap,” Cipriano said, “they’re going to fit into the dock of your implant. You can feel them?”

“Uh-huh,” Diyari nodded, eyes still closed.

“Good. That’s really good. It means your nerve connections are still intact and you’ll probably have full motion of your foot by the time this is over.”

“Good,” Diyari said.

He peaked a little when he felt Cipriano fiddling with the foot and tapping out notes on his tablet. He closed his eyes again quickly. It looked like his foot had been flayed open and inside was filled with wires. He sometimes had nightmares like that, even before Utah. With all the training and conditioning he sometimes felt like a robot and his fear was that he really _was_ a machine, and not a real human being. He felt a few little pricks like with a pen on the base of his stump and did his best to not jerk away. Was it over yet?

“Okay, all done with that one,” and Diyari did his best to not sigh in relief when Cipriano took it away. He put it on the desk and grabbed the arm and wheeled over to Diyari’s side. “Now the big one.”

Diyari couldn’t help but tuck his amputated arm up against his side. “Diyari,” Jari said, drawing his attention away from Cipriano. Diyari looked at him, anything to not look at the skinless metal thing. “I’m right here,” he said and took Diyari’s good hand in his own. “Just look at me. Nah,” he touched Diyari’s cheek when he tried to turn back to Cipriano as the engineer pulled his arm from his body to extend it. “Just me,” he smiled at him.

Diyari gave a full body shutter when he felt the cold cup of the prosthetic envelope his stump. Cipriano, thank the God, was even quicker with the arm than the foot, seeing Diyari’s obvious repulsion to the entire ordeal. “And we’re all done. See, not so bad,” Jari said soothingly, stroking Diyari’s cheek.

“Yeah,” Diyari nodded and when he looked away this time Jari let him.

“Is that all?” Jari asked Cipriano.

“Yeap. Got all the data I needed. If you want we can do another appointment to figure out what you want them to look like. Skin, or something else,” the engineer said as Jari helped Diyari put his shirt back on.

“I think that’d be the best,” Jari said. Diyari was busying himself with pulling the sock back on over his stump ankle and rolling down his pant leg again. “You can ping me about it?”

“Sure,” Cipriano said, sensing the fact that Diyari was literally about to crawl out of this fucking room if he needed. He didn’t want to stay another _second_ here. “And since his fine measurements are done, anytime he needs another one it’ll just be a simple matter of calling in the work order. No need to come back here.”

“Ever?” Diyari asked.

“Well unless the fit starts feeling off. But otherwise, yeah, last time you’ll have to do what we just did,” Cipriano nodded.

“Sounds great. Ping me and we’ll work out a further appointment,” Jari said.

“Of course. Pleasure meeting the both of you,” Cipriano said and shook Jari’s hand. When he shook Diyari’s hand it was warm and firm and Diyari felt like a dick. Cipriano just wanted to help him, that was his entire _job_ at the fortress, was to help people, and Diyari was repulsed by him. What an absolute _asshole_ he was.

With that Jari wheeled Diyari out of Cipriano’s work room and then out of the cybernetics division to the elevator. Diyari just sat in his wheel chair feeling shitty and pathetic. “I think that went really well,” Jari said.

“Is it too late to say I don’t want cybernetics?” Diyari asked.

“Well if you don’t get them we’re going to have to find someone else to be Alpha’s medic, and Ziio will probably get your number,” Jari said in an off handed manner. “You know how much Altair hates breaking in new members he actually needs.”

Diyari scowled at him, “You know just want to say don’t you?”

“Yeap,” Jari said and leaned down to nuzzle him. “Because you’re going to feel better once you can actually move them and use both your hands again,” he kissed Diyari’s cheek. “I know you’re just being grumpy cause you’re scared of being a cyborg. But hey, cyborgs are pretty hot.”

“How would you know?” Diyari huffed.

“Caaaause my amazing boyfriend is one,” Jari kissed his cheek again when the elevator opened. “Now how about we go down to floor twenty?” Jari asked as he wheeled Diyari inside.

“Really?” Diyari asked. Floor twenty was the nursery.

“Mhm,” Jari pushed the button for floor twenty-one, the lowest this elevator could go. They’d have to switch elevators to go down one more to get to the nursery. “You aren’t due back to the hospital for another hour to cover the cybernetics coverings. So we have an hour. How about we go see our baby?”

“Yeah,” Diyari nodded. “I’d like that.”

“Great,” Jari said as the elevator started to go down.

—

There was an air of unease when Alpha entered their training sim and found that Rauf and Achilles weren’t alone. That was _never_ a good thing for them. The old man was sitting on a chair and Rauf was standing next to what looked like a super armored combat suit. It looked almost like the suit they’d brought home from Colorado. Haytham was immediately wary.

“Hello, Alpha,” Rauf said, the same way he’d greet his students in the morning, with a warm smile. That made Haytham even _more_ uneasy. He’d had Rauf as an instructor for his ninth level. Rauf was normally a nice guy, a level headed teacher, and sincere. This was _not_ sincere. Rauf was about to do something terrible to the squad. After what he and Achilles had put them through already Haytham wondered if he just took have taken a sick day.

There was a spattering of ‘hello’, Haytham just nodded. “Today we have a trial on two fronts,” Achilles said. “This just came down from engineering. Its a practice droid.”

“A what? I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Munahid said.

“Well there’s a lot you don’t know,” Achilles said with narrowed eyes.

“What’s it do?”

“It fights,” Rauf said. “Its meant to be the perfect practice dummy, able to attack and guard in a variety of styles. Engineering sent it down for us to beat the shit out of while they run tests on it from outside.”

“So… we’re fighting that thing?” Kanwai asked.

“Yes,” Rauf nodded. “You don’t have to hit it hard. The droid has sensors all over its body to show us where you hit it. That and you’d damage yourself without your Alpha suits. So pull your punches. Now who wants to go first? Volunteers or we’ll just go in numerical order.” Haytham’s senses were buzzing him. Something was so wrong about this entire thing. Rauf was lying about something but he wasn’t sure exactly _what_. He glanced at the rest of Alpha. A few of them had picked up on it too. They knew Rauf was full of it. Not sure _what_ , but he was.

“I’ll go first, I guess,” Chris said. Everyone stepped back as the droid stepped forward, slightly jerky. “Won’t be hard,” Chris grinned.

“Alright, on the mark,” Rauf said, tapping his tablet. The droid was frozen for a moment before bending into a ready position similar to the style they taught young novices. Someone scoffed. It might have been Chris.

A tone sounded. Chris sprung at the droid. Haytham’s eyes widened slightly when the droid dodged at a speed he didn’t expect from a machine of that size. Most androids or humanoid looking robots weren’t very graceful. Even for all their technology most androids had balance issues because very few things could simulate the inner ear of a human that allowed for their exceptional balance and control over their bipedal locomotion. Meaning they didn’t really dodge, they weren’t graceful enough for that. This droid though. It moved like a human.

That annoyed Chris. He punched it again. It dodged. Again. It dodged. Finally Chris just stood there panting after trying to hit the damn thing for a solid two minutes. The droid stood in front of him and flicked his nose in a very teasing gesture.

“And point,” Rauf said.

“What? You’re kidding me,” Chris cried.

“The droid touched you, you did not touch it. It wins. Next.”

“This is bullshit,” Chris grumbled but did join Alpha again.

“I want to try,” Sarah said and sauntered up to the droid. She had to look up to its face.

“Alright, on the mark,” Rauf said and entered in a new command to the tablet. The droid got into a different position with a deep crouch, lowering its center of gravity significantly.

The tone sounded. Sarah and her sister were acrobats by training and their fighting reflected that. The droid lunged at her but Sarah was in the air, flipping right over the droid and kicking it square in the back. It buzzed and hung limp a moment before straightening in jerky movements.

That caught Haytham’s eye. It was only jerky _sometimes_. Why would a machine be jerky only sometimes.

“Very good, point to Ms. Sarah,” Rauf said.

“Nice. Your tin can needs to learn to fight against people who can fly,” she tapped it on the chest and glided back to the group confidently.

“Who’s next?” Rauf asked.

“Me,” Ehan said.

Haytham watched as the entire Alpha squad fought against the droid. It knew how to counter most of them and racked up a bunch of points. It felt wrong to Haytham though. He couldn’t put his finger on it though. “Haytham, you’re the last one,” Rauf said.

“Can I pass?” Haytham asked.

“Booo!” Jari jeered. “We all had to do it, your turn.” Ehan gave him a little push out towards the droid.

Haytham walked up to it and looked at it. What was it that was tickling his memory?

“Ready?” Rauf asked.

“Yeah,” Haytham got into his first form. He’d seen it deflect everyone else but Haytham had a move none of them could replicate and no one could block. Well there was one person could block it, because he’d taught it to Haytham. Altair. He could block the move. He was fast enough. Not that others in Alpha weren’t equally as fast but Altair could see the move coming, the others didn’t.

“On the mark,” Rauf said. Haytham readied himself.

The tone sounded and the droid attacked. Haytham jumped back. He wasn’t going to play its game. He moved around and away from it, trying to get behind it but it kept its eyes on Haytham. No, not eyes. The droid had no optical intakes. It was just a blackened glass. Why would it have something like that? It made no sense at all. The black glass wasn’t a lens, it couldn’t _see_ through the black glass anymore than someone without the thirteenth EV could.

Haytham blinked. The thirteenth EV. Haytham had that. It was a ‘useless’ EV to have, no one else on Alpha had it. Except one. Haytham’s eyes went gold and his vision changed.

He stopped moving and pointed at the ‘droid’, “Get that fucking grin off your face Altair,” he said.

“Damn,” Altair’s voice said through the speakers and then the ‘droid’ reached up and yanked off its head/helmet. Altair was under there. “I was _sure_ it’d take them a few rounds of me embarrassing for them to figure it out,” he told Rauf.

“I did too,” Rauf said, almost remiss they’d been wrong.

Altair walked over to Haytham and Haytham protested when Altair got him in an affectionate headlock. “Good job Barret. Only one who even bothered to look,” he gave Haytham a noogie and Haytham struggled.

“What the hell? Altair, what are you doing here? I thought you had a mission,” Munahid protested.

“Mission ended. We found the data chip and gave it back to the Spanish. Almost started a fucking war, but eh,” Altair shrugged like it was no big deal. No big deal, almost started another European war. His commander was infuriating sometimes.

“When did you get back?” Sally asked.

“Last night.”

“You’re a dick,” Chris said.

“Sometimes,” Altair said with a smirk and finally released a still struggling Haytham. Haytham wheeled his arms to maintain his balance.

“So this was our training? Fight against you?” Munahid asked.

“Yeap,” Altair nodded. “And I got to fight against you. We all know you hold back with me, so this was the best way.”

“That is… so clever,” Jari admitted.

“I can be sometimes. It was also a test to see how long it’d take you before you realized it was me. I always forget Haytham’s got the thirteenth though,” he ruffled Haytham’s hair affectionately.

“So does that mean we completed the training?” Sally asked hopefully.

“Hmm?” Altair looked at Rauf and Achilles. “Yeah. I think so. You guys won. You would have failed if I’d had to reveal myself at the end of training. So I guess you’re done, cause that’s all that was planned for today.”

There was a beat of silence. “Drinks?” Chris asked.

“Chris its only noon,” Haytham huffed.

“Hey its six o’clock somewhere,” Chris smiled widely. “Plus I think this is the first training exercise we’ve ever actually _won_. I think we deserve it!”

“Well as _fantastic_ as that sounds I’d actually much rather go see Diyari if its all the same to you,” Jari said.

“Yeah, I have stuff to do,” Sally said.

“I think we deserve the rest of the day off,” Munahid said. “We have more training tomorrow-

“Uuuhg, Munahid, don’t be a kill joy,” Ziio complained.

“So we’ll rest up, and come back better tomorrow. Now whole with Altair and Mira back home.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Altair said.

“You’re coming for drinks?” Chris asked him.

“Nah. I got to go see my kids.”

“Right,” Chris sulked a moment before wrapping an arm around Haytham’s shoulders. “You’re up for it though, right Hayth?”

“I uh—“ he paused when Chris gave him some big blue doe eyes and pouted out his bottom lip. He was so pathetic and annoying. “Yeah, I’ll come,” he said.

“Great! Kanwai, you’re coming too,” and then before Haytham knew what he’d been dragged into Chris was propelling him and Kanwai out of the sim room. It wasn’t until he was in the elevator with the the three of them that he realized Kanwai had also dragged Ziio along for the ride.

“I take it he does this often?” Ziio asked.

“Yes,” Kanwai groaned. “And if I must suffer so are you,” Kanwai told Ziio who just smiled at her. The elevator went down and Haytham knew his liver was going to hate him for this.


	21. Lines Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter than usual for this story. I’m not used to it and kinda… trying to remember how to PH oops. Gonna start exploring the weird kids a bit a bit more and gotta figure out some Altair and Malik shit. Cause they… aren’t really supposed to hate each other forever >3>

Two thuds. That was easy and Altair was disappointed. Ziio and Federico both looked up at him from where he’d thrown them to the floor. Federico seemed entirely done by the entire event and Ziio just looked upset she hadn’t been able to do anything. Altair moved into a loose stand, “Again,” he said.

“We’ve been doing this for half an hour,” Federico complained.

“Again,” Altair said.

“Why can’t you beat up some of the others instead,” he whined.

“Because the others don’t need my help. You two do. You’re young, fresh from pilgrimage, and green. If you want to make Alpha you need to get better.”

Federico groaned and laid back. “I don’t even want to _be_ on Alpha,” he said.

“Then quit,” Altair said.

Federico sat up and looked at him, “What?”

“If you don’t want to be here, quit.”

“My dad told me to come here.”

“So? I’m not Giovanni. He said kick your ass. I’ve kicked it, but I’m not forcing you to stay. You don’t want to be here, leave.”

Federico squinted at him, “You’re serious.”

“You won’t make Alpha anyway. You’re lazy, unmotivated, and egotistical. You’d never make it here. For Alpha you are a failure and your father just sent you here so you’d know that. For all your good genes and breeding you can’t stand up to Alpha.”

Federico’s eyes narrowed, “Don’t talk like that about people. Its rude?”

“Why not? Ziio here isn’t a failure. She’s a tracker. She’s _useful_. What about you? How are you useful? Not useful to me, why would I or any other squad or department head want you?”

Federico got to his feet. “Fuck you,” then he walked off.

Altair and Ziio watched him go. “That was harsh, One,” she said.

“He’ll be back,” Altair said, amused.

“You’re kidding? You just chewed him out and told him he was worthless.”

“He’s an Auditore. He might not be like his father but he’s still one of them. They can’t stand when people are right about their negative qualities. He’ll be back.”

“Will he make Alpha?” she ventured.

“Probably not. He’ll be miserable here. I don’t have time for misery. I’ll give him to someone who actually wants him. Rauf told me the Commissioner Instructor was pissed Giovanni forced him to become an Alpha Beta. Apparently he’s instructor material.”

“And me?” Ziio asked carefully.

Altair looked down at her. “We’ll see,” he said and she smiled a little. “Get up, you need more practice.” Ziio scrambled to her feet. “Now,” Altair sank into a defensive position, “again.” Ziio got into her own position before attacking him as commanded. Thirty seconds later there was a lone thud and Altair smiled a little. Yeah, she needed quite a bit more work, but she’d do.

—

The city lights twinkled in the darkness around Jun as she waited at the top of the fortress. Singapore didn’t sleep but it _did_ rest. In the early mornings the crowds thinned and even the neon and brilliant lights of the mega structures seemed dim. Tall buildings crowded the beach to the south and further inland they all rose in stiff competition to one another.

Unlike much of the rest of Asia Singapore had not been conquered by the Chinese and were not part of the Empire. That had been because the Assassins had settled here after the Collapse and claimed the entire island as under their protection. Back then the Emperor had known of the Assassins, and respected them enough to leave them alone. Since then the war engine had slowed and they could not break through to the west. Singapore had been left to its own devices and thrived without the controlling hand of the Empire to strangle it. The Assassins had no dealings with Singapore’s government and their existence had been forgotten. Their helis were written off as personal helicopters and no one questioned the strange building in the middle of the city.

It wasn’t as tall as the other buildings, it had no need to compete. To the outside world it was a department store. But the store was only three floors and the building rose up twenty. Office space everyone said, but other than the department store no company called their building their residents. Instead Assassins lived there. Above ground, for the whole world to see. Not that they could see anything of course.

Jun was waiting on the top of the fortress for the heli from America. It would arrive any moment to unload its cargo before flying off to their suburban air field. That was the one problem with a fortress in the city. There was only so much room. So the fortress was divided. Vehicles and helis were located off site in the suburbs, while the rest of the fortress was located in the city.Jun’s brows went up a bit when she heard the heli coming in from the east and looked. There were no lights on the heli and other than the soft whip of the main blade under the heli it was silent.

The heli landed lightly and the back opened. There were only two people inside, a man and a woman. Jun knew only one of them on sight. Maelin, the old Kappa-six. Jun wished she didn’t have to be here but Wang was asleep and as his favorite First Class Jun had been ordered to come instead. Maelin was the last of the old Kappa squad, one of their most prestigious squads. It had been destroyed on a spy mission to Utah fifteen months ago by religious fanatics along with the Assassin they’d been sent to retrieve. One of their cadets had traveled abroad and landed in trouble in Utah on their pilgrimage. They’d activated their dead-man beacon and they’d sent Kappa in for retrieval. Kappa, and the cadet, had been lost in the process.

Except, it seemed, Maelin.

A man led Maelin out of the heli by the hand. He looked non threatening, a support maybe. They always tended to look non threatening. Jun swallowed when they came up to her and the heli took off. Jun bowed respectfully to Maelin. “Do Maelin, it is an honor and relief to see you back in the fortress again,” she said.

Maelin bowed a bit as well, “Thank you. I am happy to be home,” Maelin said. “Where is the Mentor? Shouldn’t he be here?”

“Yangming could not make it,” she lied. It was a miracle Maelin was alive, but Yangming was not the strongest man when it came to strong willed ladies like Jun and Maelin. He didn’t want to break the news to their thought dead agent, especially not a Kappa. “I’m First Class Assassin Shao Jun.”

“Thank you for seeing me home,” Maelin said and then yawned. “Forgive my rudeness. It has been a long flight,” she said.

“Yes. Of course,” Jun said. Anything for the woman to not ask too many questions. “A room has been-

“That won’t be necessary,” the man said. “Maelin will stay with me. She is my partner.”

“Ah, of course,” she should have known that. No one had told her though. Yangming had just said to deal with it. Kappa was her responsibility. “I’m sure you want to rest and we can discuss your future with us tomorrow. We’re very lucky you survived,” she said empathetically.

“I don’t feel lucky,” Maelin said and Jun’s kind smile dropped.

“We should get you to bed,” the man said. “Rest will do you good.”

“Of course,” Maelin said with the air of a field agent who was quite _done_ resting. Jun had read the report the Assassins in St. Adams had sent ahead of Maelin. She’d been in bed rest for three months, recuperating. Jun had read about Maelin being fertile too and the Order was very interested in her because of that. Jun wasn’t even a little jealous. She just wished Maelin hadn’t left her son back in America. There hadn’t been a natural birth amid the entire Order in thirty years. It had been an American too. Jun was sure the American fortress was as thrilled to have the new child as they would have been. Clinically Jun understood why Maelin had left the child of torture and rape on another continent and allowed it to be adopted by another but the part of her that worried about her Order wished she hadn’t.

“Lets go inside, its late,” Jun said and beckoned them. The support took Maelin’s hand and they followed Jun inside.

The floors above level four were living quarters for the Assassins, state of the art and perfect protected by three inch bullet proof glass it could survive multiple shots from a machine gun before it finally started to break. Below the building another ten floors had been dug into the earth for training and sim rooms which were significantly larger than the building above and included the nursery and Order hospital. Jun had heard that the American fortress was strictly underground and she couldn’t even imagine it. It must be so claustrophobic in there and Jun felt sorry for Maelin for being stuck underground for so long. At least here they only went underground to train.

The air inside the fortress was cool and dry to combat the putrid Singaporean heat and humidity outside. Jun got goosebumps when she walked inside and went to the elevator. “We’ll have to reinstate your fingerprints for elevators and fortress access,” Jun said as the elevator doors opened.

“Of course.”

“That can wait till tomorrow though,” she added.

“Good,” the man said, pressing one of the buttons, probably for the floor his room was on. “Everything can wait until the morning.”

“Jun,” Maelin said as the elevator started to go down. Jun’s senses keyed up and made her nervous. She was stuck in an elevator with this woman now and was dreading any questions she had about Kappa or her status. Kappa were the elite and didn’t take bad news well.

“Yes?”

“Bo told me that there’s a new Kappa squad now,” and Jun stiffened. Maelin didn’t seem angry though. Not yet at least. “Could I… meet them?”

Jun had expected anger or an outburst. She hadn’t expected that. She was so surprised she didn’t speak for a few seconds. “I— Yes, you could,” she said.

Maelin smiled a little, “Good. I bet they’re all still green behind the ears.” Jun did her best not to show her embarrassment for that. Not that Maelin was _wrong_ exactly. Kappa was now made up of younger Assassins than Maelin, the squad had turned over and like most times when it turned over the new members were cadets fresh back from their pilgrimage who worked well with the Kappa-One. It had been a bit different this time because there were _no_ Kappas left, but Jun would admit the new Kappa squad was young and still inexperienced, but they were learning quickly.

“They are a good group,” Jun said.

“I’m sure they are. Still novices,” Maelin was even amused by it. Well at least she wasn’t mad. Good for Jun who’d researched Maelin and knew she had a horrible temper and could be as violent and wild as a tiger.

The rest of the elevator ride passed in quiet and then it stopped and opened. “This is my level,” Bo said and the two left the elevator. “Thank you for coming to meet us Jun,” they both bowed and Jun quickly bowed as well and held the ‘open door’ button on the elevator.

“Of course,” she said. “I will alert Kappa that you wish to see them, Maelin. And tomorrow a tech will come see you to get you reinstated into our database.”

“Thank you,” Maelin said.

“Goodnight, Maelin, Bo,” she said, thankful she knew the man’s name now so she didn’t appear foolish.

“Goodnight, Jun,” and Jun released the open door button. It closed and Jun poked the number for her floor.

As the elevator rose she sighed. “Yes, I will tell Kappa,” she muttered to herself. Though Maelin hadn’t reacted badly she still worried what the older woman would think. Jun had known the old Kappa-One. He’d been an amazing leader, an excellent fighter, and a skilled strategist. He’d collected the cream of the crop to Kappa and had been respected by everyone including Emperor-One, the commander of the highest squad in the Singapore fortress. Kappa was just below them but Emperor-One had been the same age as Kappa-One, they’d been friends and even though Kappa-One had been better he hadn’t wanted to stop his friend’s growth to the Emperor squad and had taken second best to fall into Kappa instead. He’d practically been a legend. Now he was dead.

Jun didn’t think Maelin really understood that _everyone_ in the old Kappa squad was dead. She hadn’t lived with it really, being in the fortress, alone, without her friends and Kappa family. She might not have been angry now, but how would she feel to see who was Kappa-One now? Someone who wasn’t her old commander, who was still learning to lead and had been a solo agent till their promotion to First Class and told to rebuild Kappa. How would she react to Jun being Kappa-One now?

—

Cain knew he was alive. He knew because if he was dead he wouldn’t hurt this fucking much. His neck was on fire and he could feel bandages wrapped around his throat, but could feel where his flesh had been parted by how it brushed against the soft fabric of the bandages. Without opening his eyes he tried to detect other things. His wrists were both bound by leather cuffs padded with cotton so he wouldn’t dig into his flesh. His feet were free though. Cain could feel bruises covering his body from the beating he’d taken but they felt old and sore. He was wearing a long sleeved shirt that went down to his thighs but no pants. A sheet was covering him and the room he was in was exactly the right comfortable temperature. The bed wasn’t super soft, but it was nice. He was probably in a hospital.

Slowly he opened his eyes to look around, still not moving and only moving his eyes. Hospital. A very strange hospital with no TV or windows.

He jerked without thinking, pulling at the restraints, when he saw a thing standing by the door. They were that crazy robot thing he’d seen. The bed protested to the quick force he exerted on the restraints. They were leaning against the wall, their helmet turned towards him, arms folded. Cain’s heart pounded and above him he heard a machine kick on and start beeping. The robot didn’t move.

The door opened and a woman entered. A nurse. Oh thank god a nurse. She didn’t even see the robot. Was she blind? Shit what if he was hallucinating? She came over to the bed. “Oh you’re awake. Now what’s all the excitement about hmm?” she asked pleasantly and patted his arm. Cain pointed at the robot. She turned and looked. “Oh Omega? She is there for everyone’s protection. Don’t you worry about Omega,” she said nicely and smiled back at Cain.

“Wh-where am I?” Cain asked and swallowed.

“Safe,” she said nicely.

“Where’s Daniel?”

“Who?”

“The boy. The boy I was with. Where is he?”

Her smile was still nice, “There was no boy. You were brought in alone. Quite lucky we found you you were about to die of dehydration out there in the bush. The vultures were coming for you.”

Cain’s mind whirled. He had been? He didn’t remember it like that. But the memory in general was foggy. He didn’t remember vultures. “No,” he said. “I was attacked. By that,” he pointed.

The nurse’s face never even twitched. “Impossible. Omega is for everyone’s protection, they would have never attacked an innocent.”

Cain’s heart was still pounding, the machine beeping above him. “What is this place? Where am I? Where’s Daniel?”

“Please try and remain calm, sir. You’re in a safe place,” but Cain wasn’t listening. He hadn’t been trying to get out before but now he was and started to pull on his restraints. The robot by the door stood up properly, no longer relaxed, and stood ready.

“I really don’t want to be here. I just want to go home,” Cain said.

“You will as soon as you’re better,” the nurse said. “Now please, calm down,” they pressed Cain’s hands down and he was surprised by their strength. “You’re safe here.”

“Let go!” he cried and kicked his legs, yanking his hands out of her grasp. The restraints protested loudly. “I do not consent to being here.” The nurse jerked back when Cain sat up, yanking out one of his restraints out of their place in the bed.

The robot lunged forward and before Cain knew what was going on he was shoved back into the bed, a metal hand around his throat. “Are you alright?” the robot asked the nurse.

“Yes,” the nurse said, but was shaken. “He didn’t hurt me.”

They turned back to Cain, “That was a mistake, male,” Omega said.

“Did you see what he did?” the nurse asked, almost excitedly, “Did you see his eyes?”

“I saw,” Omega said shortly. “We will alert the Mentor, let her deal with this outsider. Now put him to sleep before I kill him.”

Cain tried to thrash as the nurse took a syringe and put it into an intake on his IV. Omega just tightened their grip around his neck and he stopped struggling as they agitated the wound on his neck. Cain watched her push the drug into his IV and knew he was done for. He couldn’t fight this. He lasted about six seconds longer before he was gone again.


	22. Leg Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These boys just cannot get along to save their lives lols

The gym for the fortress was, as one would expect, huge. It was separate from the training sim rooms and occupied the same level as the canteen, though on the other side. It was two floors and had every exercise machine you could think of and probably several society couldn’t that ranged from punching machines to standard treadmills to muscle building ones and even some that helped you ‘strengthen’ your EVs. There were dozens and dozens of weights of every increment and all sorts of weight machines to help build every group of muscle available and even some that helped strengthen things you didn’t think about like the grip of your hands. The top floor also had a pool in the far wall that stretched nearly the entire length of the building. The floor of the pool was glass and perfectly transparent so you could see the swimmers and it was the only place in the fortress with enough water to learn to swim for young novices.

There were of course other facilities too. Showers and lockers and yoga rooms and rooms for private exercise or with a small group, and rooms dedicated for specific types of exercise. The only real rule in the gym was that no fighting was permitted in the gym, at all, for any reason. Even verbal fighting or you’d get thrown out for disturbing the peace. Malik had seen gyms in society on his pilgrimage but they’d all paled in comparison to the one back home. In society there was this unspoken competition about who was _in_ shape and who was _more_ in shape and who did more and looked better and was more sexually appealing because they were more fit and Malik was just confused by the entire thing and it always left a weird taste in his mouth.

The point of the gym in the fortress wasn’t to get fit, or build muscle, though those things happened, it was just one of the few recreation spots in the entire fortress. So for Malik, the gym was fun, and he went there to hang out with his friends. Apparently that was weird in society, to want to go to the gym for fun. Only _weirdos_ went to the gym for fun who were interested in getting buff. He honestly hadn’t gone much outside the fortress because he’d realized it was weird and while society people went to look a certain way most of them didn’t _enjoy_ it. It was an obligation, or a chore.

Malik went to the gym three times a week since he’d returned from his pilgrimage. He used to go more, when he’d been trying out for Alpha, then Beta, then Charlie, and he hadn’t even made it to Delta before the High Overseer and the former Head Core Programer had checked his records, found out he had all the tech EVs unlocked, and immediately scooped him up into support. Not good enough to be a program admin, but a top of the line support just fine. Since he didn’t have to stay in top physical shape anymore he didn’t go as often unless his friends dragged him along or badgered him to come hang out and run or do laps in the pool.

Today he was just here on one of his usual days. Thursdays he liked to run a dozen miles or so under the pool. He liked watching the swimmers. As he came up to the bottom of the pool where there were both treadmills, cycle machines, and stair steppers- because the admins fully realized people went under the pool to be distracted by the swimmers- he found he wasn’t the only one there. All the machines were taken, which was weird. They were never _all_ taken. Everyone was talking to their neighbor and looking up at the glass ceiling.

What was such a big deal to warrant so many people gathered to watch the swimmers. It only was this crowded the first week or so of rollover when everyone came to watch the first few classes of the level one novices learning to swim with their instructor or parents. Malik had done it with Tazim and it’d been a lot of fun. But that was usually localized to the shallow end of the pool. This was all across the entire pool.

Malik looked up. People were racing across the surface, cutting through the water like a knife. There were only five or so lanes in the pool, it wasn’t always that popular at any one time, but the swimmers took up every lane. Malik watched them with his eyes and then when they hit the far wall a new pair jumped in over them. Malik rose his eyebrows. A relay race? Who the hell had managed to coordinate a relay race? You had to fill out a time slot for pool use and getting that many people to cooperate at the same time on their times was no easy feat.

“Hey, what’s going on?” he asked someone who was jogging on a treadmill.

They didn’t even slow their pace as they looked at him. “Upper squads are training,” they said. “You just missed them playing follow the leader, it was awesome.”

“Upper squads?” Malik asked. Like who? Like Alpha? Fuck it would be _just_ his luck if Alpha was here. For a second he tried to sense if he could feel Altair but he was either too far away, or he wasn’t here. Really resonance was only good for within a few feet of someone, like a bit further than arm’s reach really. Still Malik knew when he and Altair had been going through puberty they’d been able to feel each other across the entire fucking floor and it had been _awful_. Resonance was always worse for teenagers who just started puberty when it flared up along with the rest of their body changing hormones. EVs and resonance, the worst things to ever happen to a novice Assassin at the same time.

“Yeah, Alpha and Delta,” and Malik did his best not to wince. Well, at least it wasn’t all bad. Malik rather liked most of the people on Delta. He’d liked Alpha too until he’d learned that Altair was Alpha One. He’d been so _content_ to just think that he’d left Alpha when Giovanni had stepped down as One. No way a Giovanni worshipper like Altair would have tolerated another One. Instead he’d become One. Prick.

“How long they been at it?”

“A while,” they said. “Way I heard it they have the pool booked _all_ day.”

“All day? Seriously. That seems a bit ridiculous,” Malik said.

“Yeah. But its a good show so who am I to complain,” they smiled.

“Yeah. I’m sure, if you can get a spot,” Malik craned his neck to look around. There wasn’t a single vacant machine.

“Heh, that’s for sure. I got lucky and got here before they showed up. I heard there’s not as big of a crowd upstairs though, you can’t see as well.”

“I see. Thanks,” Malik left at that.

Well he could still run he supposed. He just had to find another treadmill. The pool array wasn’t the only one array since treadmills were some of the most popular machines. There was no track in the fortress and it was a pretty small building all things considered. If you wanted to run _miles_ you had to use a treadmill, or go topside and run outside. No one liked doing that though. He went to another treadmill array and found it empty. Well this was weird. He wasn’t used to one place being so empty and another so populated in the gym. He shrugged it off and got on the machine. He started at a walk and worked himself up to a jog and then just a fairly slow run.

He was running for a while when someone came and draped themselves across the front of his machine. “Don’t you-

They cranked the speed up in a deliberate, malicious, manner, and Malik could keep up for about two seconds before he had to lift himself up off the mat so he didn’t go flying off the back. “Damnit Jacob!” Malik yelled and set himself down on the sides of the treadmill. Jacob Frye was an asshole and it was for that _precise_ reason that the two of them got along.

In front of him Jacob just laughed like this shit was the funniest thing in the world. “Not funny,” Malik said scathingly and turned the treadmill down to walking speed so he could go back to using it.

“Nah, it was great,” Jacob said. “The look on your face was priceless,” he framed Malik’s grumpy face between two sets of L shaped fingers, closing one eye. “Where’s four eyes?” he asked. “Usually you drag him along today. Get him out of that den of tech he lives in.”

“He was going to see his daughter. She’d in med again.”

“Again? Man, mate, he just can’t catch a break can he?”

“Nope,” Malik said. “Now where’s your better half?” Malik asked, meaning his sister. Malik liked dealing with Evie way more than Jacob, even if he and Jacob did get _along_ better than he and Evie. But like most Assassin twins the two were rarely apart for long or in any great distance. So if Jacob was here his sister was around. Probably trying to ignore her brother and hang out with her _own_ friends honestly. Malik didn’t blame her. Jacob was annoying as hell and when he and Malik were together the annoying factor went up about ten notches. Not that Malik was annoying. Malik was an asshole, there was a difference, and Jacob was annoying, and an asshole too. So together they were just more annoying and assholes to everyone. It was great, and Evie hated it.

“Eh, who knows. She’s mad at me,” Jacob shrugged his shoulders in an exaggerated manner. “Don’t even know what for this time. I swear I didn’t even do anything.”

“You sure?” Malik asked, giving him a look.

“Yeah? I didn’t even punch anymore recently, swear it,” he nodded.

“Somehow I don’t believe that,” Malik said, eyeing him.

“I did nothing! I am innocent here and she is just mad at me,” he complained.

“Jacob, you are many things. Innocent has _never_ been one of them.”

“Beh,” he scoffed. “You see that?” he pointed towards the pool ceiling.

“Yeah, I saw,” Malik said slowly but sensed teasing from Jacob’s tone.

“Your boyfriend looks hot in a speedo-“ and Jacob had to duck when Malik tried to punched him. Malik nearly went over the front of treadmill he was so mad at Jacob for saying that shit and wanted to punch him.

“Shut the fuck up Frye,” Malik growled. Jacob was Malik and Altair’s year mate after all, and he knew how fucking horrible it’d been to be around the two of them growing up. Malik hated nothing more than having resonance with that guy. Like literally nothing more. He’d had rather been a freak with zero resonance to anyone than have it with Altair.

“Hey now, no fighting in the gym,” Jacob said gleefully.

“He’s _not_ my boyfriend. I fucking hate him. He’s why we don’t hang out with Rauf anymore so why would you even find him amusing?”

Jacob frowned a little. “Yeah, that’s unfortunate.” Jacob leaned on the treadmill, knowing Malik was bound by social order to _not_ strangle him or cause a scene at the gym. As it was people were giving Malik the stink eye for trying to punch Jacob for being a prick. “Well. He just said he wasn’t going to be friends with _you_ anymore. I bet he’d still hang out with me and Evie. Maybe you should talk to his pet dog and see if you two can’t play nice a bit. I liked playing cards with him.”

“That’s cause you cheat and Rauf is too nice to call you on it,” Malik huffed.

“I do not,” Jacob said, insulted, and put his hand to his chest.

“Yes you do. Now did you need something? I _was_ running.”

“No. Not really,” Jacob said and moved over the treadmill next to Malik’s. “I’ll run with you I guess. Bored and you’re at least not yelling at me like Evie is about nothing.”

“It isn’t nothing I’m _sure_ ,” Malik said and finally put his feet back on the treadmill since Jacob was on the one next to him. He worked it up to a jog.

“Its Evie, its _always_ nothing. Always like ‘Jacob you’re being a prat’, ‘Jacob stop cheating at cards’, ‘Jacob stop flexing in front of the mirror’, ‘Jacob go bother someone else.’ Honestly she does not appreciate our twin-ness nearly enough.”

“I can only imagine why,” Malik said and rolled his eyes. Malik didn’t blame Evie for being done with her brother. Malik could only handle Jacob in bursts and they weren’t even related. It was a miracle Evie could handle him in the extended periods of time that she did and not want to beat his face in. Something something sibling bond or something probably.

“That hurts,” Jacob complained in that way he did that Malik could not take seriously.

“You’ll survive,” Malik said and the two of them just ran in silence for the most part. Unlike Malik Jacob was still a field agent. He was in Charlie, which was full of brutes and general thugs. Charlie was a ‘bully’ squad with huge armor that made them like walking tanks. You have a sticky situation where finesse wouldn’t work and you didn’t care about destruction you called in Charlie. They’d blow a hole in the world and come out unscathed with their prize and a hostage if you wanted one. Worked well in some of the more aggressive parts of the Americas where squads like Alpha and Delta were too fine and not tough enough to shrug off bullets. A Charlie suit could take a shot from a hand gun at point blank rang and just shrug it off for the Assassin to keep going. So Jacob ran faster than Malik, because Charlie-One’s favorite ‘training’/torture was making her squad run while in full half powered Charlie suits. Malik tried his best not to try and match Jacob’s speed but he couldn’t help it. He picked his speed up a bit.

“You don’t wanna do that, Mal,” Jacob said, noticing.

“Do what? I’m just running here.”

“You don’t wanna get into a speed test with me,” Jacob said, half goading, half serious.

“I’m not. I just wanted to go a bit faster. It isn’t always about you, Jacob,” Malik scowled at him.

“That is where you are wrong, my friend,” Jacob said and waved his finger at Malik with a wink. Malik just scowled at him more. “When Jacob Frye is around it is _always_ about me.”

“I’m amazed you’re alive,” Malik said. “How does that _ego_ fit in this room let alone that tiny head and short little body of yours?”

“I’m not short!” Jacob cried. Even though he was. Jacob and Evie were, of course, not identical twins, but they were both the same height, and Evie was not a tall girl. She was about average, meaning Jacob was short for a guy. He was only an inch or so taller than Rauf actually and Rauf was _short_.

“Yeah you are,” Malik said, because it was easy to make fun of Jacob’s heigh because he got so infuriated when people did. Jacob almost took a swipe at Malik but a crowd suddenly yelling distracted him. It was coming from the pool area and they both craned their necks to see what was going on but they were too far away and at a bad angle.

“Wonder what’s going on,” Jacob said.

“Who cares,” Malik said, looking away and going back to his running, turning the speed up just a little bit more while Jacob was totally distracted.

“I mean I guess-

Jacob rubbernecked when a very literal _roar_ sounded from the pool area. Malik put his foot down on the side rail, keeping the other lifted, and looked too. He couldn’t help it but he couldn’t keep up with the pace of the treadmill and be distracted by looking around. His entire body would start going that direction and he’d eat the machine. People were gathered under it, and not just those using the equipment, and pointing upwards at it excitedly. Jacob turned off his machine. “Okay I need to go look.”

“You can’t be serious,” Malik complained.

“What?” Jacob asked and lifted both his hands at Malik. “You can’t say you aren’t curious.”

“Yes. I can,” Malik said, hoping he didn’t sound like a lying, bitter, asshole.

“I mean, if you wanna be like that just cause Altair is gonna be there, you can. I’m gonna go see what they’re doing,” and with that he left Malik there. Malik frowned and then frowned deeper. Damn Jacob. He was right of course, Malik _was_ curious and he also _was_ just being petty because it was Altair. He looked away and went back to his exercising.

He wasn’t going to give in just because Jacob made him feel petty. He turned the speed down a bit to a speed he could manage and went back to running. To his right he heard people yell and more than a few awed noises. Malik kept looking but he was trying to see the ceiling at an angle and other than the glass and a bit of blue it was impossible to see anything.

Everyone suddenly gasped when something collided with the bottom of the pool. It was loud enough for Malik to hear from where he was and he missed a step so he tripped and had to grab the bars to not either pitch forward or get shot off the back. From here he could see a dark color on the bottom of the pool but not much else.

His curiosity won over his pettiness. Malik turned off his machine and went over to join the crowd watching the drama unfold in the deep end.

It took Malik a few seconds to realize what was going on there was just so much going on in a lot of three dimensional space. It was Alpha, and Delta, and they looked like they were playing keep away with each other. There were no teams, it was a free for all. They were playing keep away with a small rebreather attached to two small canisters of air. The entire apparatus was probably only about as big as Malik’s entire hand and was allowing for them to stay down for longer than they could hold their breath naturally. At least, if they could get ahold of the rebreather and actually get some oxygen. He did see a couple of people treading water at the surface, obviously they were ‘out’ and could no longer participate in the exercise.

Malik just watched in rapt attention with the rest of the crowd. They were all very serious in getting the rebreather too. The three dimensional space meant you had to watch every angle and hugging a wall was also super dangerous. The rebreather changed hands regularly though as they tackled each other through the water and kicked and grappled and tried to breathe. It took Malik a solid minute to realize something too. They were _all_ using Eagle Vision. Not a single one of them wasn’t golden eyed. Though who knew what sort of EV they were using since Malik knew that the members of Alpha and Delta ran the gambit for EVs from people with full program admin abilities to ones with such steady aim they were like a robot to such sure echolocation they could go around with their eyes closed and in general could just control their bodies to such a fine point that who _knew_ what they were doing with their EVs. He had to guess that those that could were regulating their hearts to move blood slower so they burned less oxygen and needed to breathe less.

Malik couldn’t help but flinch when four bodies collided with the pool floor. Malik didn’t know any of them by name but it was three women and a man. They landed hard on the floor and Malik knew it wouldn’t crack from just that but he couldn’t have stopped his wince even if he’d wanted to. They scrambled at one of the women’s hands who was outstretched, holding the rebreather just out of reach as they fought against each other.

Then someone came from above and plucked the rebreather out of her hand. It was comical as the three who had attacked the woman with the rebreather all looked up in surprise as their prize was lost. Malik blinked and checked them both. The woman who’d had the rebreather and the one who’d taken it were identical. _More_ twins. Malik was sure he knew of most of the twins in the fortress. He wasn’t aware there was a pair of them on Alpha or Delta. The one twin took the rebreather, put it to her face, and breathed deeply.

Everyone who was on the dog pile on her twin immediately kicked off the floor and swam at her. The woman kicked off the floor to get away and they chased her. They were so hasty though that they missed her dropping the rebreather. Her twin, the original one with the rebreather in this mess, crawled along the glass floor and picked it up and took several breaths now that everyone was busy chasing her sister.

It was during this time that she looked down. It must have been the first time any of them had even bothered to look _down_ through the floor. She was greeted by the sight of probably a hundred eager faces looking back at her and her surprise was genuine. She took the rebreather off her face and waved at them watching with a bit of a smile. More than a few people waved back and Malik wasn’t the only one who pointed up, and behind her, when someone came up above her.

She spun and was warned enough to miss someone trying to grab her. Malik scowled. That someone was Altair. He could hear Jacob’s teasing in his head. ‘Your boyfriend looks good in a speedo’. And _fucker_ he was _right_. Altair looked fucking amazing in the regulation bathing suit which covered to his mid thigh and did not leave a whole lot to the imagination. Not that they all weren’t good looking in their swim wear but Malik couldn’t _help_ but notice Altair. Maybe because he’d entered the range of resonance they had. Malik could feel him all along his skin and he rubbed his arms.

Altair missed the grab and went down head first into the floor, managing to catch himself on his forearm so he didn’t eat the glass. The girl tried to dart away but he grabbed her by the ankle and overcame her in seconds. He paused, pressed the rebreather to her face so she could breathe once and then stole it. So she was a member of Alpha. Altair would never be that nice to a member of Delta. Rauf had gone on a bit about how Alpha treated Altair sort of like their dad, even though many of Alpha _still_ had parents. Altair in turn treated them like his grown children. Malik couldn’t imagine that from Altair but he did know that he wouldn’t have given that girl another chance at the rebreather if she hadn’t been in Alpha. Some people cheered when Altair let her get a last breath and she pointed down at the floor.

Malik stiffened when Altair’s golden eyes looked down at them, the rebreather in his mouth now. He was in the process of waving at them when his eyes stopped and Malik was _very_ aware Altair had fucking seen him. Altair looked around to see who’d seen he had the rebreathed (and the answer was everyone) then looked back down and Malik knew he was once again looking right at Malik. Malik’s entire face turned so red it was nearly purple with hate when Altair flipped the crowd off with two hands. Well, not the crowd. Malik. People boo’d and flipped him off back as he kicked off the floor and sped away to another part of the pool. The girl was still on the bottom of the pool looking very confused why her commander had just flipped off a bunch of innocent bystanders. Then she pushed herself up and went after Altair who’d already had the rebreather taken from him and was being wrestled from everyone left and right.

Malik just stood there, not watching anymore. Rather he was looking down in furious humiliation. Not that anyone _knew_ Altair had just flipped him off. They all thought he was just being an asshole but Malik knew.

He walked off. Fuck this. He wasn’t staying another second. Fuck Altair, screw gym day, he was pissed and needed to beat something up, or someone. Yes, someone. Someone like Altair. Oh how he’d love to just beat him to hell and back. Malik went back to his previous machine, grabbed his bag, and left without even bothering to look for Jacob. He didn’t care. He was just mad. He’d been enjoying it up till then too. Then Altair had shown up and ruined it, as he _usually_ did.

He heard excited noises from the crowd under the pool and he just boarded the elevator. He scowled at them hatefully, and especially hatefully towards Altair, as the doors closed and he went up to his room.

—

When Cain woke up again he was in the same room, but the restraints on his person were much less nice than they had been the first time. The Omega robot-maybe-actually-a-person-in-a-suit-of-armor was there again, watching him behind a shiny black visor, perfectly smooth and reflective. He could see his room reflected back in the visor’s mirrored finish but not himself. He couldn’t lift his head that much off the pillow as they had a belt around his neck now.

He swallowed a few time. “H-hey,” he croaked. Omega jerked and looked at him. They then went to the door and he heard talking in code. “Fuck you,” he told it, at the ceiling, when it came back inside. Omega said nothing. “No seriously, fuck you, bastard. Beating the fuck out of me, nearly killing me, the choking me and all this bullshit.”

“Quiet,” Omega said. Cain started. It didn’t sound the same as the last time. Was this a _different_ person inside that suit? How many Omegas were there?

The door opened and Omega stood ram rod straight. Another Omega, an identical clone of the other one, entered, wheeling someone inside. Cain’s eyes strained to see since he couldn’t move his head. He could see it was a woman, tiny and frail with a deeply wrinkled face and tired eye. Who the _fuck_ was this? Omega-two wheeled them up to the side of Cain’s bed.

He tried to shrink back. Nope. Wrong assessment. This old lady was actually scary as fuck. He hadn’t been able to see correctly at first but now he could. She looked like a vulture with a face as scarred as it was wrinkled and green-yellow eyes that looked almost gold that were mean as they were intelligent. She might have been an old lady but Cain did _not_ want to talk to her. He knew, just on sight, that she’d make him look and feel like a fool.

“Hello, deary,” the old woman said. Cain said nothing. “Don’t you know its rude to ignore your elders?”

“Who are you?” Cain asked, voice raspy and he swallowed to try and wet his throat, but his mouth was dry.

“Omega, give him a drink,” the old woman said. Omega-two, as Cain was referring to the second robot-maybe-actually-a-person-in-a-suit-of-armor, moved around to the side where a glass with water was on the side table. It had a straw in it and they picked it up. They also pressed a button on Cain’s bed and he was lifted into a somewhat sitting position. Omega-two let Cain drink from the water glass and Cain drank greedily. “How was that?” she asked.

“Doesn’t make up for nearly killing me,” Cain said bitterly. “Or kidnapping me. But other than that, it was great.”

The old woman smiled. “Good.”

“Where am I? Who are you? Who and _what_ the hell is that?” he jerked his head in Omega-two’s direction.

“That is Omega, she is there for everyone’s protection. Where you are is classified information. As for who I am? My name is Tiamat.”

“Uhg, that doesn’t sound good _at all_ ,” Cain grunted.

She laughed a little laugh that sounded _exactly_ how you’d expect an evil grandma to sound. It was creepy as all hell. “But the real question is who are _you_ , male?”

“I don’t like your tone old lady,” Omega smacked him upside the head. “Fuck off tin can bitch!” he snapped. Omega hit him again.

“Omega, that is enough,” Tiamat said. “The boy has not been forthcoming with information. What is your name?”

“Cain,” he said.

“Cain what?”

“What’s it to you?”

“It matters a great deal to me. Why is not important to someone like you.”

“Then I won’t tell you,” Cain said, just to be annoying. Why not right? What were they gonna do? Tie him up and interrogate him- oh wait, too late.

“Bloodlines are important to us here in the Fortress. Now. What is your last name?"

He looked at Omega. He really did not fancy getting hit again by that armored hand of hers. “Barrows,” he said.

“Useless. A fake name,” Tiamat dismissed it.

“What? Fuck you. That’s my last name, cunt.”

“He’s obviously unaccounted for, ma’am,” Omega said. “We only lost three cadets in a time period acceptable for his age range. All boys.”

“Hmmm,” Tiamat squinted at Cain. He had no idea what the hell was going on but he didn’t like it one bit. “What was your father’s name?”

“My dad? What’s he got to do with this? And why do you care? You still haven’t told me anything except very obviously that I’m a prisoner here. Why should I tell you _anything_.”

Omega sighed laboriously. “I do hate society males,” she said.

“Hush now Omega. Don’t blame him for not knowing how to act in front of women,” Tiamat scolded Omega like a grandmother did a favorite grandchild.

“I know how to act in front of women. You two are just crazy ass bitches.”

“Can I hit him again?”

“No, Omega,” Tiamat said sternly. Omega sighed again. “Now, do not make this difficult, boy. Who was your father?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“As I said, bloodlines are important here-

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter to you.”

“Then what’s it matter who my dad is?” he challenged.

Tiamat pursed her lips. “I see you are being difficult. Fine. You may be. Omega, I think he is well enough to be removed from the hospital wing. Take him to one of the interrogation cells.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Omega said with a level of childish glee Cain found disgusting.

“We’ll see how he feels in a few days and if he’s more willing to cooperate with us. Certainly he will if he wants to see the child again.”

“Hey, you better not hurt him,” Cain said, straining a bit against these restraints.

“Oh don’t worry. The boy is useful to us. He will not be harmed. If you are is yet to be seen,” Tiamat said.

“Cunt,” Cain growled, straining some more.

“Do save your strength, Cain. You won’t break out of those restraints on brute strength or EVs this time.”

“What? EV?” Cain asked, confused.

“Idiot,” Omega huffed.

“Omega, make sure my instruction is carried out,” Tiamat motioned and Omega-one came from the door to wheel her away. “I suggest sedating him so he can’t give you a hard time.”

“I agree. Shall I keep you up to date on his progress, Mentor?” she asked.

“Yes, please,” Tiamat said and then she was being wheeled away. Omega-two stayed and Cain could do nothing but either look at her or not look at her. He chose not to look at her. A minute later a nurse came in. He made his bed rattle a bit when he struggled but could do nothing when the nurse knocked him out again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I couldn't help myself. Of course the Australian Mentor is Tiamat :3c


	23. Person of Interest

There was a strange feeling in the air when Alpha entered the training room in their sim suits. The sim was already fabricated and it looked like they’d not just taken this sim room, but the one directly above it to give the simulation a height they couldn’t achieve with just one. It was a huge building like one they’d see out in St. Adams nearly completely made of glass and intimidating to a bunch of underground livers. Rauf and Achilles stood in front of the entrance, waiting for them.

“Hello Alpha,” Rauf said in greeting. He got a smattering of ‘hellos’. “We’re coming to the end of your retraining. This isn’t the _last_ exercise Achilles and I have planned for you, but its the last one we’ll be in the sim rooms for, and the last ones we break you up for. You’ve all improved greatly independently and after this exercise we’ll start working on your cooperation.”

“But we work well together,” Jari said.

“For the most part,” Rauf shrugged. “But that isn’t for arguing. Now, as you can all see, this is your exercise,” he motioned up to the short tower. “Inside of it is Beta, Charlie, Delta, and even some of Foxtrot, lower numbers. They’re all in there to stop _you_ from getting to the goal. They’ve been authorized to use any means necessary to ensure you fail.”

“What’s the goal?” Altair asked, folding his arms. He didn’t like this.

“They’re guarding something. Someone significant to each and every one of you. Your task is to get through them and bring them back down here to us. You may _only_ bring down the person who is for you. If they are not you’ll have to start again and they will go back to being guarded.”

“That doesn’t sound too hard,” Sally said.

Rauf smiled and Achilles chuckled. That made everyone much more uneasy. “There is a time limit. You have _one_ hour to find your person, and bring them back here.”

“Shit,” Ehan muttered. One hour wasn’t a lot of time, they knew that and so did Rauf and Achilles.

“But we’re not unfair. Your sim suits will replicate your Alpha suits for this exercise,” Achilles said. “Though the semi active camo function is deactivated. As are comms. If you wanna talk it’ll be over speakers, or through sign.” Well that was just great.

“Weapons?” Altair asked.

“There are weapons you can find and take with you inside the sim,” Rauf said. “We also provided shields and guns if you wish to use them. Shields provide protection against units like Charlie but will slow you down, guns are good for handling situations at long range but if you shoot a gun it will alert others in the area. All of the units we have stationed in the tower will know where you are if you fire a gun. There are of course various bladed weapons for your use; you just have to find them.”

“How will we know who is looking for who?” Sarah asked.

“Trust us, you will know,” Achilles said. “You’ll figure it out as soon as you walk inside. Any more questions?” None were forthcoming. “Excellent.” He looked at Rauf and Rauf dialed something into his tablet. Altair felt more at ease when the familiar HUD of his Alpha suit finally showed up over his face. He didn’t realize he’d missed his Alpha suit so much until he’d finally gotten it back. Of course, the sim suit only replicated parts of the Alpha suit. It was much lighter than the actual thing. But they weren’t aiming to kill in a simulation, so lack of armor wasn’t important.

“Direct your eyes up to the top of your vision,” Rauf said and Altair looked up. He had to look up kinda far. Then he saw it. 1:00:00. “Your timer begins the moment you step through that doorway. You may not _talk_ to each other until you step through that doorway. Begin.”

Altair went first, because he wanted to get this over with. He walked to the entrance and his squad followed. He stepped inside and his brow creased. Some of his men stopped when they walked in and behind them people ran into them. “The hell is that?” Chris asked. So they did all feel it. Altair looked up at the timer, it had started.

“No time for that,” Altair said.

“How are they doing this?” Jari asked and rubbed his arm.

“What? What is this?” Haytham asked, looking around. They were just in the foyer of a tower, there were pillars holding up the sides and elevators and stairs to the side. A large front desk dominated the back wall. They weren’t commenting on the foyer, but on the feeling they were getting. Altair had recognized it instantly. So had Jari and Sarah who were just confused by the entire thing. It was resonance. They could feel it, very strongly, all along their skin and making their scalp prickle.

“Resonance,” Sarah said. But resonance was short range. How the hell did they get it to project so far? “You all can feel it too?”

“Yeah,” Kanwai said. “Feels weird. This what it feels like all the times with your partners?” she rubbed her arms.

“Yeah,” Altair said. “Though I don’t know how you are all feeling what I’m feeling, since resonance is different by person.” He looked up at the clock. They’d wasted nearly five minutes here.

“Because they are all different,” Haytham said suddenly. “Rauf told us, we’d all know our person when we saw them. Meaning they aren’t in little groups or whatever. They’re all in different places in the tower.”

“They’re splitting us up,” Altair said.

Ziio sighed, “Great.”

“We’re burning time here,” he continued. “Try and stay as a group as much as possible to get an edge over the guardians, but make sure you find who you’re looking for. I’m going,” and without much else he turned around and went for the western stairs. He could feel the incremental increase in resonance as he went for them and started going up. He heard Alpha break up into groups, some going for the eastern stairs, some going for the elevators, and even a few following him.

“Who do you think it is?” Chris asked.

“Someone significant,” Altair grunted.

“Yeah but _who_?”

“Quiet,” Altair said as they climbed and Christ stopped talking. There were the top squads and high ranked members of Foxtrot in here. People sometimes liked to badmouth Foxtrot because there were so many of them, that they hadn’t been ‘good enough’ to get into the higher squads. Sometimes that was the case. Other times it was simply a matter of clashing personalities. Unlike Alpha, Beta, Charlie, and Delta, where numbers didn’t matter other than One, in Foxtrot numbers mattered. One was the best, the commander. Then below them were the Twos. Multiple Twos, their seconds in command. The currant F-One had six Twos. They all were top notch. There were nine Threes and fifteen Fours and so on and so on. Not until you got about Ten did the skill level kinda peter out for higher ranked squad skill and that was still a few dozen people. After Ten you had people like Federico who had an excellent pedigree and training and actual skill but just didn’t have the temperament or personality to _fit_ anywhere in the top four squads. Altair didn’t count out those higher than Ten. They were just as dangerous.

Where had Rauf and Achilles drawn the lone though? Where was the cut off of ‘not good _enough_ ’? Altair had no idea. Even without Foxtrot there was still the top three who all _loved_ to beat the shit out of Alpha. Their entire training up to this point after their stress tests had been ‘of Beta, Charlie and Delta, who can beat the shit out of Alpha the best’. Of course not that Alpha didn’t do the same thing when one of them needed to get thrashed. Altair had been on the opposite side of scenarios like this multiple times in his career in Alpha. Going up against new Betas who were green as hell when the One had changed when Giovanni had still been Alpha One. Now Altair’s men were the young and not as tested as he’d sometimes like, so the others were brought in remind them they weren’t that tough and were young, and had a long way to go.

Altair was so distracted by his thoughts he didn’t realize he was alone. Chris and whoever else had been with him had peeled off at some point. Altair looked up. His legs were burning but he barely noticed. He was on flight eight now and still had to go up. He frowned.

What would he bet that Rauf and Achilles put his person on the very top floor just because? He’d bet a lot actually.

Altair left the stairwell and leaned down a bit to try and relieve the stress in his calves from basically just running up eight flights of stairs. He was in a hallway lined with doors. Altair wanted to check his thermals but knew it’d be useless. Space was distorted in a sim room and someone in a room nearby could in fact be across the building, but because of the space distortion you’d never know. All actual enhancing EVs were useless in a sim room. You had to rely completely on your normal senses.

Altair walked down the hallway slowly, making sure no one could surprise him, to the elevators. He clicked the button to call one and hated that it took _forever_ to show up. Then it dinged and he was surprised when a body fell face first out of it. He looked into the elevator. Munahid was in it, breathing hard, still in a stance.

“Sir?” he asked.

“Its been five minutes and you’ve already gotten into trouble I see,” Altair said and dragged whoever it was out of the elevator so he could get on.

“I do that,” Munahid said. “You took the stairs?”

“I gave up. Rauf and Achilles probably put mine at the very very top. Just to see how I handle it.”

Munahid chuckled. “That’s an idea I guess- oh! This is the floor.” Munahid had pushed every single floor on the elevator so he could check each one. Good idea for him. Bad for Altair. “Good luck, sir,” he said as he left.

“You too,” Altair nodded. The doors closed and Altair used a trick that worked on the elevators in the fortress. Sometimes the children got into the elevators and pressed _all_ the buttons, because they were children and that was what they did. To reset the buttons you had to hold the top floor and the bottom floor at the same time for a few seconds. Altair was glad when the trick worked here too. He clicked the top floor to make it go all the way to the top.

—

Once Altair had left Sarah had gone immediatly. She took the elevator, hardly waiting for Sally to come with her. The others could take the second elevator, she didn’t care. She clicked the exact floor she wanted and the elevator rose. “You know where you’re going?” Sally asked her.

“Yeap,” she said.

“How?”

“Because I do,” she said.

“But _how_? Is that how that resonance stuff works? You just know?”

Sarah felt bad for her sister. She’d gotten lucky, and had resonance. Fairly strong resonance too. Sally did not. Not uncommon. Twins notoriously didn’t usually _have_ resonance with anyone else. Usually because their bonds were so strong with each other. Nothing weird. But resonance was rare for twins. If anything Sarah was the weird one who’d found out she resonated with one of the boys a level above them totally by accident.

She could still remember how surprised she’d felt when she’d found out. And then mad. Mad enough she’d beat that boy up during a level exchange training. How _dare_ some boy feel more important to her than her sister. It hadn’t lasted very long of course. Sally was important to her, and she spent more time with her twin than anyone else, but Micheal was important to her too. Sally didn’t even hate her for it. Which was more than Sarah could have probably done. Sarah didn’t like to share a lot, not even with Sally, especially if she’d had to _share_ Sally with some boy.

Sarah looked at her twin. “Yes,” she said. “I just know.”

“You think its the same for both of us? We’re identical twins,” Sally said.

“No,” Sarah said. “If it was you’d resonate with Micheal too. But you don’t.”

“I don’t _normally,_ no,” Sally agreed. “But this is artificial. I could now.”

“I don’t know,” Sarah shrugged. She sure hoped Sally wasn’t feeling what she was feeling. Micheal was the one thing that made the two of them different. That Sarah resonated with someone meant that they weren’t just clones of one another. She loved her sister so much but they always wanted to be their own people, even if often times they were just ‘the twins’ or ‘the Miller girls’ and rarely actually themselves. Altair was one of the few who didn’t do that to them. To him they were independent and different and he loved how they worked together but understood that they were not incomplete without the other.

The elevator opened. The two of them were greeted by the sight of several agents, _also_ in full Alpha gear, waiting for them. Sarah looked at Sally out of the corner of her eye and saw the briefest nod.

They ran out of the elevator in unison and collided with the first set of guardians as one. Sally knocked one right off their feet while Sarah went high and kicked high, knocking their lights out. Then they were on to the next set. They attacked together, overpowering the agents who were waiting for them. They didn’t aim to really hurt, just subdue. Assassins that were dealt with left the battle to go find someone else to give a hard time.

They had to find down an entire hallway and it seemed to take forever. Then they finally cleared the hall and stood at the end, panting. They were at an intersection. One way went right, the other left.

“That way,” they pointed in opposite directions.

“Oh,” Sally said. “So I guess… it isn’t Micheal,” she sounded both relieved and disappointed.

“We’ll have to split up,” Sarah said. She checked the time. They’d wasted fifteen minutes with that fight. “You go after yours, I’ll go after mine,” she said.

“But, I don’t like it when we split up,” Sally said.

“We’ll be apart just a bit,” Sarah reminded her.

“Who’ll watch your back if I’m not there though? I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt either,” Sarah said. “But they’re making this difficult.”

“Yeah. Jerks.”

“Obviously they made it so that we have to split up, knowing we’d fight together to this point. Us going together will waste time we might not have. So we have to split up.”

Sarah knew her sister was frowning, though she couldn’t see it through the visor. “I guess. I hate splitting up though.”

“Me too,” Sarah nodded a little. “But this is how this test goes.”

Sally sighed. “Okay. Stay safe.”

“You too,” Sarah said.

They separated and Sarah kept looking over her shoulder as she went down the hallway. Sally had taken off at a run and quickly went around another corner. She heard a fight break out and it took every fiber of her being to not turn around and race to help her. Instead she turned the corner herself and found herself staring down three members of Beta.

Fantastic.

—

After everyone had left Jari was alone in the foyer. They’d all gone off, upstairs. He wasn’t drawn up though. Instead, before he even moved, he took off his helmet. The sim suit did a really good job of mimicking his Alpha suit, but it didn’t give him the sort of feedback he needed. He just wanted to see, before he got mad about this. Because he probably was going to get mad.

He opened his ears, dialing them up and out to echolocation, then he snapped his fingers a few times. The sound shimmered around the room, making it look like the walls were swaying. He tuned his EV against it, to take account for the distance in this place. Then he walked over to the hallway he felt being called from. “Crack!” he yelled and the echoes came back to him as harsh waves. The door was open down the hall and the waves bounced about around a figure in the room. Sitting.

Not a wheel chair.

So he wasn’t going to have to get mad. Good to know. Jari put the sim suit helmet back on. Also meant Diyari wasn’t in there, so it was someone else. Maybe his dad, or his half sister who was like eight years older than him. He didn’t really talk to or know her really but she was still his big sister. Their moms had been different and her mom had been in love with his dad. His dad… had not. It was awkward any time their weird family was together.

Jari went down the hallway, no one showed up to attack him. He knew they’d be guarding them though so he took his time. He was on the first floor, meaning that he wouldn’t have to go far once he was done. So he took that time to explore and look for a weapon. He checked some of the rooms. They were literally just empty rooms to act as distractions if you didn’t know exactly what you were looking for. Waste your time and make you open all of them. Worked for people who didn’t have strong resonance and would just blindly follow the feeling. Jari was used to the resonance though, and would have just walked past. He was rewarded for checking all the rooms though. He found a baton in one of them. Was pretty heavy and Jari wondered if it was real, or if it was just a sim room weapon. Whatever, he had a weapon now.

He still checked the rest of the rooms but found nothing there. That took him twenty minutes all together and he had little over a half an hour to get this done.

Finally he came to the room he wanted and looked in. He took a deep, angry, breath. Diyari was sitting on the chair. “Hey babe,” he said cheerfully when he saw Jari, and waved a little.

“I’m going to bitch Rauf out for this,” Jari said and entered the room. Diyari just smiled a little then pointed behind Jari. Jari looked and saw a bunch of Delta standing up. They all had swords. He didn’t even fucking care. They’d used his handicapped boyfriend for this! He was _pissed_. They were standing between him and getting Diyari out of here and back to the hospital where he would be taken care of.

He switched his grip on his baton, gripping it hard, and advanced on the members of Delta. He was going to beat the ever loving fuck out of them for getting in his way.

—

Ehan didn’t like this. At all. He didn’t like his exercise, he didn’t like this feeling, he didn’t like hunting in a damn box. It was all short sight lines. Terrible for a guy like him. But worst of all was this resonance bullshit. He didn’t like it and didn’t like how it made him feel. It made him feel _good_ and it freaked him out.

Ehan didn’t really resonate with anyone. He didn’t mind. Plenty of people didn’t resonate. He found other ways of forming connections just like anyone else. The fact that suddenly this _thing_ could show up and make him feel so good all the sudden, like it should have always been there, made him uncomfortable. He liked to think he was a pretty stable guy. He had Alpha, and his friends, and Muna.

So not the time to be singling out Munahid. It just made him scowl as he moved through the building. It felt like he was in a maze, and was just wandering. The resonance didn’t pinpoint anywhere for him. It was instead sort of nebulous and annoying.

He was rounding a corner when he ran into a group of Foxtrots in Alpha suits. They attacked him without hesitation. Munahid was ready for them though. He had picked up a sword from the first batch he’d dealt with. These guys didn’t know how to really use all the sensors an Alpha suit, even a sim Alpha suit, could offer them. He dispatched them without even breaking a sweat and just continued along.

Ehan looked at the time projected high in his visor. He’d spent forty five fucking minutes out here already. He was going to fail because he couldn’t fucking find where this resonance was coming from! That pissed him off so much. Ehan didn’t get mad easily either. He was even keeled and a calm front when the kids in Alpha started freaking out about whatever. Altair appreciated that he was so mellow, and had no drama. So for something to actually piss him off was not insignificant. He shouldn’t even be mad about it either. Which just made him more pissed off until he was just a quietly seething ball of rage. Not that you’d know by looking at him.

Okay maybe not at _him_ , but the bodies he was leaving in his wake were sign enough he was mad. He hadn’t actually _hurt_ any of the Foxtrots who were getting in his way. He’d just thrown them on their asses good.

He stopped in the stairwell and looked at the door. It felt _different_ in there. ‘Louder’ maybe. Something. He went onto this floor and went looking. He knew he was on the right track when he ran into a group of upper squads. Mixed Charlie and Beta.

“Not in the mood for this shit,” he grumbled to himself, not even stopping as he just continued forward. He wanted this over and done with and for this feeling to _stop_. It needed to stop before he just killed someone for real by accident. “If you just move aside I’ll spare you the embarrassment,” he said over the speakers.

The guards looked between each other and he couldn’t hear them inside their helmets but he knew they were laughing. Ehan’s eyes narrowed and in three steps he had his sword out and cocked back in both hands. He swung hard, and faster than they were expecting. Big, slow, dumb, Ehan. Muscle head who spent all his time in the gym and used a sniper rifle because he was too ‘stupid’ to use a sword. No one expected him to be fast. Certainly not these Betas and Charlies.

Their mistake.

—

The elevator made a pleasant ding when it reached the top floor. Altair got off and was met with Foxtrot. A whole _slew_ of them. He had no weapon. There were a dozen of them between him and a single door at the end of the hallway. He was being pulled right to the door. They were ready for him. How many of these Assassins were Alpha-Beta dropouts? How many had Altair beat to get a place in Alpha instead? They’d have brought more if they weren’t at least in the top Five of Foxtrot. F-One was gonna laugh himself hoarse when he heard Altair had wiped the floor with them.

“So,” he said casually. “Should I move first? Or you?”

They did the smart thing and attacked in mass. Their numbers forced him back into the elevator and there was no way he could get it closed. Instead he just punched the first one in front of him, right in the side. The sides and joints of the Alpha suit were the only weak parts. Lower ranked agents weren’t used to keeping that part protected. Their suits weren’t as flexible because of it but they were safer. He grabbed another by the shoulders and bashed his head into their helmet. They clattered to the ground as Altair moved to another one. He shoved two into walls and jabbed another right in the delicate seaming of their inner arm with his fingers.

That gave Altair a bit of breathing room, but not much. Enough to jump off the wall and crash through the ceiling of the elevator and up onto the top of the elevator. Unlike the ones in the fortress this elevator used a hydraulic piston to move it up and down. Perfect. He flicked his eyes at part of his HUD and flexed his hands a bit as his palms and fingers became super grippy. Then he grabbed the piston shaft and using just his arms he climbed up the last flight to the maintenance door to get at the upper part of the piston. He swung his legs out and caught the edge of the floor before looking down. Foxtrot was staring up at him through the hole in the elevator, some of them had their visors cleared to make sure they were _really_ seeing this bullshit Altair had just pulled.

“Lets try that again. Try and kill me this time,” Altair called down to them and gave them a sarcastic little salute before pushing off the piston arm and attaching himself to the final door and the ledge only a few centimeters wide. He hummed to himself, using another HUD action to ‘pop’ one of the armor sections out from his arm so he could use it like a crowbar attached to his forearm. He pried the closed door open and rolled into the maintenance closet.

Well, so far so good. He ran to the door and took the stairs leading out of it at a jump. He cleared the entire stairwell and rolled into the fall so he was back up and running within seconds. He took another set of stairs down and came out in the ‘top floor’. Foxtrot was still down the hall at the elevator, sort of staring around, unsure Altair had just happened. Altair pushed the door open slowly and eased his way down the hall. None of Foxtrot noticed him or were paying attention to their side motion trackers.

He was eight feet from them when he whistled, the sound extra loud through the helmet speakers. They jerked and looked at him, standing literally in easy reach. “Hi again,” he teased them, waving a bit. “Single file line boys and girls,” he said and got into position to fight them all.

They did not disappoint. They did not attack him one by one at the least. They surrounded him but they all had weapons so if they attacked too many at a time they’d hurt their comrades. That was not a problem for Altair. They attacked in sets of three, a good plan, and Altair actually had to focus to avoid getting hit by their sim swords. He glanced at the clock in the top of his visor. He couldn’t spend any more time here. He still had to get his target and bring them back downstairs. Altair had the feeling once he was making his way _down_ it’d become significantly more difficult for him. He remembered Jerry had laughed at him when Altair had told him about the rescue scenario they were playing now. He’d known. Bastard. Meaning he was gonna make Altair’s life difficult.

Altair’s arm jerked up and he stopped the sword with his forearm. Didn’t matter if this was a sim suit, he would have done this with his real Alpha suit. They could take a beating. Could definitely stop a sword. Altair grinned behind his visor and he felt a shift as everyone stopped a moment when Altair quite literally stopped the sword. They got wary in a hurry. Not quick enough for the guy attached to the sword Altair had just blocked to avoid losing his sword and being bashed in the helmet with the pommel. Altair cracked them twice on the helmet and they stumbled to the ground, dazed but would get up in a bit.

He tossed to sword over to his good hand and moved offensively. In and out. They put up a good fight though. Slashing and stabbing in a coordinated flurry. They were probably all talking in their helmets, making sure to keep Altair distracted and busy so he couldn’t single one of them out. Once he could focus on one they were done for. They knew that and Foxtrot was _very_ good at doing just that. Distracting higher level threats and communication. Altair probably shouldn’t have been thinking about talking to Foxtrot-One about how to make his team talk more, good team building exercises or something; but he was.

Wasn’t the best idea. Someone got one over on him and smacked him in the ribs from his side. He hadn’t been paying attention to his side motion sensors like a fucking rookie. It hurt pretty bad and the sim suit gave him the feed back of warm blood. That strike would have been with enough force to puncture the pressurized webbing of his flanks had it been a real sword, and had it been at real speed. It stiffened along his upper thigh to give him a handicap like he’d been actually injured. Okay. Time to retreat for a sec.

Altair fell back and, ducking and dodging around four swords and ran right into a Beta. He looked back at them when his back hit them. Beta helmets had an open mouth covering but a very large and bulbous ‘cranium’ that was full of sensors and state of the art equipment without a faceplate. It was just plating. Alpha helms did a lot of things pretty good. Beta helms did a few things _very_ well. The joke was that Beta helms could see through a lead wall. And you’d think the open mouth would be a handicap, detrimental to keeping the face protected. Not so. Not when the huge gorget could come up from below and protect the mouth as a set of interconnecting plates.

“Hey One,” the Beta said with a smirk.

“Uh-“ was all Altair got out before the Beta head-butted him so hard he crumpled. Beta squad was also ‘lovingly’ known as the Ram Heads, for their penchant for head-butting each other and anyone else that got too close. Their top heavy helms were perfect for head-butting and it was the ‘signature’ move of Beta squad. Altair should have remembered that _before now_. Right now he was just trying not to see stars. “Ow,” he grumbled from the floor.

Before they could attack again there was an explosion. An _explosion_. The fuck? “Please tell me that wasn’t real,” Altair said.

“Charlie’s in top form today.”

“Great,” Altair grunted and hopped to his feet. If Charlie had simulated explosives he one hundred percent was sure Chris had gotten his hands on some of them. Don’t ask Altair _how_ he’d have done that. But he knew Chris. Chris would get them.

“Yeah it’s-

Bad idea to try and talk to Altair. He was busy. The Beta should have been worried about keeping Altair down. Not running his mouth. Altair brought his sword up and vertical. It was still just a rod that looked like a sword so when Altair pushed it up against the bottom of their mouth the point stayed just against the skin. “Really didn’t like the head-butt,” Altair said. The Beta scowled at him. He was ‘dead’ now. Hadn’t been paying attention to what Altair had been doing. Too busy thinking about explosives. Unlike the Foxtrots though Altair wasn’t going to ‘maiming’ blows. He needed to ‘kill’.

“Bye then,” and the Beta walked off, through the Foxtrots, to the elevators. Altair chuckled to himself sore loser.

Altair turned back to the smaller fish. “Now, where were we?” he asked them.

“You know we’re just gonna waste your time here,” one of them said.

Altair checked his clock. He had wasted a _lot_ of time here. He was down to thirty-seven minutes. Way too much time spent than he’d wanted to. Not good, at all. He needed to wrap this up. They wanted to waste his time? Well he wasn’t going to let them have the satisfaction.

Altair flicked through a few menus on his HUD as the fake Alphas approached him. He backed up, back down the hall to the door that led up to roof access and the elevator maintenance. He wasn’t happy with what he saw. None of his presets were available. Why they would be Altair wasn’t sure but he’d thought maybe he’d get lucky. Obviously not. He was also still ‘bleeding’ from the flank and more of his sim suit was starting to lock up. He needed to do something about that too. He forcefully locked the side of his Alpha suit to put pressure on the wound and the sim suit let off a bit on the lock up. He still had some stuff to get sorted out though.

He was out of time. He hit the door and the Foxtrot guys were still coming. He needed to get this done. He flew through menus and settings, building one of his presets on the fly. Wouldn’t work _quite_ like his actual Alpha suit since this was just a sim suit, but it’d get the job done. It’d send the information to the simulation room and that’d help.

Altair took a defensive position, sword out in front of him, ready to spring. Foxtrot kept a few feet back. They had a healthy respect for what he could do and didn’t want to get bunched up here. He’d move through them like a hot knife through butter if they let him get an edge. That bought Altair enough time to finish the preset. Just dial the strength back some so he didn’t crash. He checked his timer again. Thirty-three minutes left.

Altair sheathed his sword before leaning down to brace himself, going into a sprinting stance. Foxtrot hesitated. Altair activated the preset and took three steps at a full sprint. That was all the room he had to get the speed he wanted. He planted both feet and more through the work of the sim room than anything Altair was launched into the air at a thirty degree angle. In his normal Alpha suit the leg mechanisms and hydraulics would be what propelled him, but there was none of that in the sim suit.

Altair flew over the heads of Foxtrot and landed on the other side. He landed bad though thanks to one of his legs being half locked up by the sim suit and him ‘bleeding from the side’ bullshit. He rolled a few times on the floor before pushing himself up a bit with a groan.

“That was some bullshit, sir!” someone yelled from the crowd of faceless helms staring at him. A bit too surprised by the second insane move he’d just pulled to move for a few seconds.

“My specialty,” Altair said, giving them a sarcastic finger guns and heaved himself to his feet. They moved towards him but he ran away. You didn’t have to win every fight. You just had to survive them. All you had to do was survive in this world. Altair had learned that lesson dozens of times over since he’d left the fortress as a teenager. Just survive, and the world would work itself out around the fact that you were still there.

He made it down the rest of the hall and to the intersection where the door leading to his resonance was telling him to go. He busted down there and prayed there weren’t more Betas in the room.

Altair yanked the door open and ducked inside, slamming it closed without even looking inside. Then he stood there, letting himself catch his breath. Finally he looked up. “Oh you gotta be kidding me,” he complained, forgetting his external speakers were on. “Ah shit,” he added when they glared at him.P

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a fun chapter to write :3c  
> I am gonna touch on a few other Alphas next chapter. Like Chris, who wants to bomb the entire fucking place cause he's like Jari. _How fucking dare you_ with who Rauf and Achilles chose for this lols.


	24. Squad of Misfit Toys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a hot minute huh?

Sarah was exhausted. The Betas she was fighting didn’t seem too tired and they all had a weapon. Every time she checked the clock more had been eaten away. It was starting to make her mad and where she was mad she was sloppy. They got more and more hits on her. She had to retreat but they didn’t follow. She went back to the intersection and tried to think of a plan. How would she get out of this?

As she waited Sally came back, equally as beat down. “Sarah?” Sally asked in honest surprise. “You didn’t get Micheal?”

“I can’t get through,” Sarah said.

“Me neither. I can’t move fast enough to counter them all.”

“They know our weakness,” Sarah said, Sally nodded. “We’re only one body alone.” She sat down because there was less than half an hour left. They couldn’t fight this.Not alone.

“Then let's fight together,” Sally said after they’d been there a few minutes, wasting time.

Sarah looked up at her. “But then we might not have time to get both,” she said. “I don’t want one of us to fail.”

Sally cleared her visor and then reached down. Sarah looked at her hand before grabbing it and her sister pulled her up. “Let's go get Micheal.”

“You sure? I don’t want you to miss-

“It doesn’t matter,” Sally said. “We won’t really resonate, its just a trick. I’d rather go get him because I know how important he is to you.”

Sarah hugged her sister. “Alright. Let's go,” and they headed down Sarah’s hall.

The Betas were there, waiting. They didn’t seem surprised to see the both of them and got into position. This time when Sarah got into her own stance it was complete and Sally was there next to her, putting her body in a complimenting spot against her. These Betas were about to learn the pain of getting attacked by Assassin twins.

A Beta attacked first, swinging with a baton. Sally deflected it and Sarah punched them. Two shots to the stomach, one to the side, and then Sally kicked him, sending him flying into the wall. “Let's get this over with,” Sally said.

“He okay?” Sarah asked. The Beta they’d just destroyed gave a weak thumbs up to them but looked dazed out of his mind. That sorted out Sarah felt no hesitation in going for the others.

The twins moved together and forward perfectly. They’d trained all their lives for this and moved like one person. Separate they were weak and fragile, like they were missing an arm or leg. But together they were whole and strong. Neither of them did one thing, they just did as needed. Deflecting blows, blocking kicks, punching and kicking and jumping and twisting. Their style was acrobatic and in the close quarters of a hallway like this they excelled, able to get height above the Betas or flipped off walls to land on their heads or shove them down the hall where they’d come. For the twins it was a dance and the Betas didn’t know any of the steps.

“Good job,” Sally said once they were done. They were both panting but the Betas were on the floor in various states of incapacitated, at least for the time being. It had been a long fight and they’d had to earn every inch they got. Sarah raised her hand and she didn’t have to see Sally’s face to know she was giving a tired smile and then high fived her.

“Let's go find Micheal,” Sarah said straightening with a groan and they continued down the hall. There was a bend in it and then a door. Sarah rushed to it and opened it.

Micheal looked up from his tablet without a single care in the world, he looked like he was listening to music, or watching some society show. As he did they all looked around when an explosion went off. Sarah thought she’d heard another one earlier but she’d marked it down as her hearing things. Not the first time she’d heard things in the middle of a fight. “What was that?” Sarah asked.

“Let's be honest; probably Chris,” Sally said.

“How did he get _bombs_?”

“No idea,” Sally shrugged.

Sarah went over to Micheal, “Hey honey,” he said.

“I’m sorry Rauf roped you into this,” she said.

“Don’t be. It was kinda fun. I got to watch you all work, and I barely ever get to do that,” he showed her his tablet. Half of the screen displayed a show he was watching and the other half was a series of cameras recording various Alpha members. “You and Sally were really impressive out there.” Sarah flushed a little at the praise.

“Sis, we only have like ten minutes,” Sally said.

“Huh?” she looked up at her timer. “Right, okay, let's go. C’mon Micheal,” he turned off his tablet and got up.

“I was told if you managed to get to me that we should go out that door,” he pointed at the door on the opposite side of the door they’d come into.

“Why? What’s on that side of the door?” Sally asked.

“No idea. They just said I needed to make sure you went through that door.”

“Okay,” Sarah said slowly. Sally went over to the door and then stopped and looked at her sharply. “Everything okay?”

“Whatever is calling my resonance is through here,” she said, sort of excitedly.

“Really? Awesome, lets go,” and Micheal followed behind her as Sally opened the door. Sarah tried not to feel too bad at Sally’s disappointment when they got inside. Sally’s ‘resonating being’ wasn’t even a person. It was Sally’s cat, Helios, a short haired golden tabby.

“Hey baby,” Sally said and went and picked Helios up out of the little open cage he’d been left in with a little dish of water and a ball with a rattle in it to play with. Helios squirmed until Sally cleared her visor and then he recognized her. “They used my cat,” she said and Sarah went over to Sally because she sounded like she was about to cry.

“Hey,” Sarah touched her arm. Sally looked at her and then her visor went dark again. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Right. Lets get out of here,” she swallowed and they left through the other door.

“Ah shit,” Sarah said. More Betas. They had fifteen minutes to get out of here and she had no idea how they were going to do that.

“I’ll just take care of Helios,” Micheal said and gently took the cat from Sally. “Kick their asses girls,” he added cheerfully.

“We will,” Sarah said. “Let's go,” she told Sally who just nodded and Sarah noticed Sally had picked up a weapon from their last fight. That had been smart, she hadn’t thought of that. She’d been too worried about getting to Micheal to worry about arming herself. The Betas formed a wall and the twins threw themselves at them.

—

Delta formed up in front of the doorway. There was only one way in or out of the room and it was through them. Jari tapped the baton against his leg with each step. One step, two step then he cocked his entire body and aimed for a head with the baton. A sword caught it midair and Jari kicked them since they’d left their middle open. They doubled over a bit as another of the Deltas attacked him, swinging to disarm and get contact with the weaker padded flanks of his Alpha suit. Jari deflected each swipe and they took turns jabbing at him but didn’t enter further into the room. One would strike and then one on the other side would and then another before the first one had even really removed their arm.

Jari got tired quickly and retreated back into the room next to the chair Diyari was in. Delta didn’t move to follow and just huddled in front of the doorway like a spider armed with swords. They weren’t here to attack him. They were here to waste his time and make sure he failed. Not an option.

“I know you can do it,” Diyari said from his chair.

Jari looked down at him, “What’d Rauf say to make you come?”

“He didn’t. I volunteered,” he reached over to tug on Jari’s free hand. Jari’s fingers flexed so Diyari could grab a few of them. “I haven’t seen you a lot because of training, and I wanted to make sure you worked hard.”

Jari huffed. “Does the doctor know you’re here?”

“Yeap, Rauf pulled rank on him, it was _awesome_ ,” he practically giggled.

“Alright, any advice here smart guy? I could bust through them but it’d take me a while, and I want to get you out of here.”

“Well, they won’t attack me,” Diyari said helpfully. Jari blinked at Diyari and while his boyfriend couldn’t see his face his ‘the fuck did you just say’ expression must have been obvious in his body language. Diyari chuckled a little. “You know what I mean,” he said nicely.

Jari looked from Diyari to the Delta squad and back at Diyari. “Ey, rules are no helping,” one of the Deltas said.

“Oh fuck off, Dorn,” Jari said.

“If a hostage is capable and an asset they would be able to lend help,” Diyari said. “It’s not out so out there that they’d help who’d come to rescue them.”

“Yeah but that’s not fair,” Talla complained.

“What’s not fair is using my _actual_ resonating boyfriend as live bait. I’m gonna chew Rauf’s head off for this.” Diyari chuckled again. “What’s so funny?” he grumbled.

“You’re hot when you’re protective,” Diyari said and across the way all the Deltas groaned in disgust. “Now cmon.”

“Ugh, you’re so difficult,” Jari rolled his eyes inside his helmet. He glanced at Delta. “They won’t attack you?”

“Rauf said if they hit any of the hostages they’d get novice cleaning duty,” Diyari said.

“Hey, stop telling him stuff,” Dorn scolded.

“If I was a _real_ hostage I’d tell them that too. Maybe I’m the son of a super wealthy guy and if you damage the goods the boss will kill you on the spot. Good hostages know when to talk and trust me, I’m a _very_ good hostage,” he smiled meanly and that cowed all of Delta. He tugged on Jari’s sleeve. “Get me out of here.”

Jari looked at him, looked at Delta and thought about what he could do that would protect him from getting beat in the back but also keep Diyari from harm. If they wouldn’t attack him, and thus not Jari, then he’d have to use Diyari like a shield. That sounded about as appealing as it would be. He didn’t want to use his boyfriend as a meat shield. He glanced up at the clock in the top of his helmet. He had fifteen minutes or so left. He’d have to get going.

Hating every moment of it he reached down to pick Diyari up in a bridal carry but Diyari resisted. “Hey, stop that. I’m listening to you, don’t be annoying,” he frowned.

“Carry me chest to chest, so they can’t attack your back either,” Diyari said.

Jari was super done with his boyfriend now. He wanted this to be over. He did relent and scooped Diyari up, holding him under the thighs and Diyari put his head on his shoulder, arms around his neck, legs around his waist like a spider. Or he tried to. The lack of an ankle on one leg made the leg crossing difficult.

He had to imagine Diyari looked _so_ smug when Delta moved out of the way and just let Jari walk right on through, carrying Diyari. As he went down the hall Diyari waved at Delta. Someone must have waved back before Jari heard someone getting smacked. “Don’t fucking wave Dyran. He isn’t even using his hand.” Jari just rolled his eyes and kept going.

—

There was a hole in the side of the sim building. An actual hole. The faces of the Foxtrots in unshaded Alpha helms was absolute fear as Chris very casually tossed a grenade in his hand. Not a sim grenade. An actual grenade. He always kept two on him at all times in his belt. After a few incidents with Alpha that had gone south he’d learned to always, _always_ , keep explosives with him. Unless they were stripped off his person he always had them and only took them off when he was in his room.

Smoke billowed out of the hole in the sim building, half obscuring the terrified members of Foxtrot from Chris but also half concealing him from them. He’d found a few sim explosives in the building while tracking this resonance bullshit. Things that made smoke or made your ears ring or were flash bangs. Things that made your sim suit lock up when it interpreted data from the sim explosive to match a real explosion.

Those had been fun but now Chris was _pissed_. It was just a sea of Foxtrots in front of him and he kept on just casually tossing the very real grenade. He’d used up nearly all of his sim explosives and used the real one to blow a hole through a wall he’d felt his resonance coming from. Chris had caught a glimpse of who was inside. Who Rauf and Achilles had wrangled into this. He wondered if they even knew what this was about. Regardless. How _dare_ they!

“So,” Chris said, still standing in the smoke, his voice one of the only tangible things about him. “Who wants to get out of my way?”

Foxtrot looked at each other. Then back at Chris. “You aren’t supposed to have those, Christopher,” he recognized Charlie One from his time in training with them. Heather came forward in her Charlie suit. Where Alpha was well rounded, Delta sleek, and Beta top heavy Charlie suits were built like walking tanks. They were heavy hitters and there was always talk of a Charlie chest plate taking a tank shell and not hurting the wearer. How accurate those claims were were up to great debate.

“Get out of my way,” he growled, shifting into a stance, holding the grenade in his fist. “Non-combatants shouldn’t be brought into semi-live fire exercises.”

“Non-combatants are the ones who end up being hostages, Chris,” Heather said calmly and another Charlie came up beside her. They motioned to the numerous Foxtrots and they fled. They were no match for a pissed off Alpha with a live grenade. “Now put the grenade down before you hurt someone.”

“Get out of my way and I won’t have to,” Chris said.

“I’ll give you to the count of four,” Heather said. “Put the grenade down and fight us like a man, or we’ll make you.”

“Eat my ass, Heather,” he growled.

“One,” Heather started. He and Heather had _never_ gotten along. As soon as he’d come out of his pilgrimage he’d been thrown into Charlie thanks to his aptitude tests and general desire to blow shit up. Heather had never liked him. He was too cocky, too reckless, but way better at the job than she or anyone in Charlie were. “Two.” He could still remember explosive dismantling exercises he’d done in Charlie where they’d all have a little friendly competition. Once Chris had gotten into the swing of it he started doing it faster than anyone on Charlie, faster than Heather. She resented his talent and he had never liked how she’d pick on him for it. Shit duty for doing a good job because she couldn’t stand the idea that Chris would probably lead Charlie when she stepped down. He was too good at it to not. Zero praise for being leaps and bounds above everyone else because he liked doing that sort of stuff. “Three.” Eventually he’d flunked out because fuck Heather. Altair had scooped him up immediately. He thought Chris was crazy as a sack of cats but he valued Chris for his ability, his skill, and that he could get shit done. “Four.”

Something flicks on his motion sensors behind him and Chris ducked to avoid a god damn hammer to the head. Like an old school war hammer. Those you couldn’t just carry around in the street like a sword or knife. They were considered barbaric. Perfect weapons for people like Charlie who liked destroying things. This _maniac_ had just tried to take his head off with a god damn war hammer.

He was faster than the Charlie behind him, his suit more flexible and he rolled away. Charlies couldn’t roll. They were too clunky, too rounded and thick. Push them on their backs and they’d struggle like turtles. The hammer came down again but it wasn’t aimed at Chris’ head or his body. Instead it nailed his lower arm and he screamed in his helmet. He didn’t think he’d broken it but the shock the sim suit sent to him made him lose grip on the grenade in his hand.

Heather came and put her foot on the grenade so Chris couldn’t get to it. His arm hurt like hell. Her Charlies flanked her and they looked like bullshit knights in behind their bullshit leader. One of them had the war hammer, the other had a comically huge sword. Behind his visor Chris’ eyes were full of hate. “I did warn you, Chris.”

“And I told you get out of my way,” Chris showed both hands. One still grasped the live grenade, the other had a pin around his middle finger which he proudly raised to Heather. “I wasn’t out of sims.”

Chris rolled over away when the grenade dinged and then exploded in a blast of sound and fake concussion. The three Charlies dropped like stones and Chris waited until the dust had settled. No ringing in his ears. He’d crafted the prefab in his suit before hand when he’d found the sim grenades to deaden all sound and light when grenades went off so he couldn’t be blinded or deafened by them.

Holding his arm and testing it to make sure that war hammer wielder hadn’t actually hurt it he struggled to his feet and walked to the hole in the wall. He poked his head in. “Lima Bean,” he called to the girl sitting on the chair playing with a novice tablet. She was only about thirteen and when he spoke she looked up. She looked sort of like him.

“Chris?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he came into the room. He took a knee in front of her. “What are you doing here, Lisa?”

“Mr. Al-Naib was taking volunteers to help out in an Alpha exercise. I won the lottery.” Lottery Chris’ ass. “You’re in Alpha.”

Chris groaned in his helmet. This _wasn’t_ how he wanted his Lima Bean to know he was in Alpha. Lisa was his little sister and didn’t know Chris did anything dangerous. She always got mad whenever he came home from missions all bruised up and he’d lie to her, telling her he’d gotten into a fight or accident while working. Never the truth. His dad couldn’t have given a fuck about Chris. Chris was a bad memory for his dad of a woman who loved him and he wanted nothing to do with her. His mom had been so upset Chris’ dad hadn’t changed his tune when they’d been joined she’d asked to be permanently reassigned to the bureau in Vancouver. His little Lima Bean was the only one in their fucked up family who cared about Chris. The lying wasn’t any better than the truth but at least the lying didn’t have her worrying about him coming home.

“I— yeah. I’m in Alpha. I’m Alpha Three.”

Lisa’s eyes got real big. “Really? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Chris looked up to the top of his helmet for the time. He had ten minutes to get her down ten flights of stairs and who knew what other bullshit along the way. “Later, okay. I need to get you out of here. Then I’m gonna have a _very_ stern talking to with Mr. Al-Naib,” he got up and offered her his hand. She took it and he pulled her out of the chair. She left the tablet and they walked out of the room. “Did you hear the explosions?”

“No, the room was sound proofed. I just saw the hole in the wall.”

“Right,” Chris said as they walked out to the hallway where Heather and her Charlies were still all locked up from the sim grenade.

“I’m going to write you up for this,” Heather said as they walked past.

“Get a life, Heather,” Chris said, still holding his sister’s hand. As they walked past the hole to the outside of the sim building Chris heard something. It sounded like yelling. Curious he left Lisa in the hallway to stick his head out the window. His eyes widened and then two figures streaked down from the top of the building. He did his best to track them and the readout on his visor said it was Altair. Holy shit. That was one way to get to the bottom of the building as fast as possible.

Chris didn’t even consider that for Lisa and instead grabbed her hand again and led her back down the hallway towards the stairs.

—

Ehan stood at the door. As close as he could get without touching it. Behind him were the groaning forms of the Charlies and Betas who’d gotten in his way. He could feel the sensation of resonance all along his body. It seemed to start at the nape of his neck and extended all the way down his tail bone as a gentle fuzzy feeling and then up over his skull making the hair on his scalp prickle and tingle. Ehan hated it. But it was also comforting in a weird way. It felt right and natural.

He was so afraid of what was on the other side of the door. Who or what had Rauf and Achilles decided would be the stand in for Ehan’s real resonating partner? He swallowed and put his hand on the knob very slowly. He couldn’t bring himself to turn it.

The alert he’d set for himself pinged. Five minutes until the end of the exercise. He had to do this and then race back downstairs. Ehan sucked it up and opened the door.

The room was empty. Ehan didn’t know what he expected or what he wanted but the emptiness made his heart drop. He walked into the empty room. There was another door. The feeling said through there. He went over to it and reached for the knob. Just as he was about to touch the knob the door opened and Ehan was met by a mirrored image. Or not a mirror but someone his height and build in an Alpha suit.

Munahid was as surprised to see Ehan as Ehan was horrified. He took a step back and almost tripped over his stupid big feet. “Ehan?” Munahid asked. Munahid’s visor cleared and Ehan could see his face. “What are you doing here?” Ehan said nothing. Just silence. Silence was better. He didn’t know what to say even if he could. “Huh… the resonance is gone,” Munahid said thoughtfully. “Fuck.” Munahid frowned as he looked at the clock on his helmet. “Three minutes. We aren’t going to make it,” he told Ehan, “Even if we did find the end of this wild-goose-chase- Ehan, are you okay buddy? I can’t see your face but I know something up.”

Ehan looked away from Munahid and the Book of Mormon verses cut into his face. Munahid touched his arm and Ehan pulled away. “E,” he said and grabbed his arm. “The fuck is wrong?” The alarm buzzed in both their helmets, signaling the end of the test. They’d both failed the exercise. Munahid didn’t care. “You’ve been acting really weird lately and now you’re blowing me off. What happened?”

Ehan didn’t even know what to say. What to do. Instead he just carefully pulled his arm out of Munahid’s hand and reached up to take off his helmet. He wasn’t good with the whole words thing but Munahid knew how to read him like a book. The kids in Alpha always complained that Ehan was unsympathetic to them or never seemed to show any real emotion one way or another. They just didn’t understand Ehan. No one did. After what had happened to the two of them as kids in Utah only Munahid really understood Ehan anymore. When something like that happened to you it was hard to open up to other people who didn’t understand.

Munahid just looked at him. “E, we’re okay,” he said. “Are we okay?” Munahid had figured it out by Ehan’s face what had happened. Whatever it was, however they’d done this fake resonance, had been to end up with not someone else, but with each other.

The stupid part was that Ehan and Munahid didn’t even actually resonate. Ehan knew Altair had figured it out, he always figured his squad out, but had he told Rauf? Or had Rauf just seen how close they were and seen nothing else that compared? Ehan had no one else other than Munahid. His one surviving parent lived in the S Fla, ran the Gainesville bureau and sent messages only now and then to make sure Ehan was still alive. Outside of Alpha Ehan had no one and even inside it only Munahid or Altair really understood him. There was nothing else important enough to Ehan to make him actually want it like he assumed this was supposed to be. He didn’t care about anything else.

But Munahid was his blood brother, literally. They’d both been laid out on that street and cut up by Mormon extremists and when it came time for them to go to the hospital and get blood there had only been so much of their type. Assassins were funny like that. Their blood types were rare. Part of the EV process when they were embryonic. They’d had to share the limited amount of blood the California hospital had had on hand before more could be flown in by helicopter. Probably from a ‘private hospital’ that was actually a bureau.

“You’re my best friend,” Ehan said.

Munahid wasn’t surprised by the words so much as Ehan had just come out and said them all on his own. “And you’re mine,” Munahid said. “From the start, to the end. Now what’s wrong? I know you don’t like to talk, but I think we need to. I’m worried about you.”

“Not now,” Ehan said and pulled his helmet back on.

“Right, we need to go downstairs. Get bitched at for failing,” Munahid sighed and followed Ehan out of the room towards the exit.

—

Altair had just turned off the external mics of his suit so he didn’t have to hear the bitching in stereo. _Both_ Malik and Rauf were chewing his ear off for that stunt. Rauf because even in a sim room jumping out of a window at that height was dangerous and Malik because Altair had _thrown him out the window_. He’d jumped right out after Malik of course to grab onto him and pray to the God that he’d been right.

There hadn’t been a parachute but the sim room, probably thanks to a now very stressed out core programmer who’d been watching their exercise the entire time, had made a floor of foam blocks to fall into as they’d plummeted to the ground. It was tens of feet deep to break their fall and then they’d spent the rest of the exercise climbing out of the foam block pit. Malik had yelled at him the entire time. Then once they were on the ground Rauf had joined right in with the scolding.

Altair just looked at them through his blacked out visor. He could read lips alright but didn’t want or need to know what they were saying to know they were both pissed. What else was new? Their mouths moved soundlessly at least, so Altair didn’t have to hear it.

There were members of Alpha waiting for him when he’d finally crawled out of the foam pit. Haytham was talking with his dad already and Jari had been in the middle of chewing Rauf out for using Diyari when Malik and Altair had fallen out of the sky. The twins had been there as well with Sarah’s boyfriend and Sally’s cat. Chris had shown up shortly after with his little sister who looked very upset by the entire thing and Chris looked beside himself. Mira had come out a few seconds after time had run out with a friend of hers. Then much later Ehan and Munahid had come out together and Kanwai had sulked her way out of the building, arms folded. Bringing up the end was Ziio who took a significant amount of time to get back down. She was also empty handed.

It took a few minutes more after Ziio came down for Rauf to stop nattering and calm Malik down enough to not be red in the face in rage. Altair dialed one of his mics open to make sure there was no more annoying ranting.

“Everyone’s finally back,” Achilles said and Altair turned the rest of the mics on to hear better. “Good. Some of you were successful, others were not.”

“This wasn’t cool,” Chris said. “Leave my family out of my training.”

“Chris, it’s fine,” Lisa insisted.

“It is not,” Chris said firmly but Altair knew he’d break. He was so weak to his sister.

“None of them did this against their will, so we’ll hear no complaints about this exercise,” he gave Jari and Chris stern looks.

“And what about us losers over here?” Kanwai complained.

“You did your best but we see where you have room to improve. That information will be given to Altair for when he works with us on your next round of training.” There was a collective groan when Achilles said that. “But overall everyone did very well today. You should be proud, especially those who do not normally feel resonance. It can be very disconcerting her those who have never felt it before.”

“I never found mine,” Munahid said, raising his hand a bit. “It went silent a few minutes before the end of the exercise.”

“You’re sure?” Achilles asked.

“Pretty sure. One second it was there, the next it wasn’t.”

“Perhaps you should think of what you experienced then,” Achilles said. “But that is all the training we have for you today. We will be talking to Altair about what you did-

“And his stupid stunt,” Rauf growled.

“And in the future when we try this again you may do better. Next round of training will be intensive teamwork training to test your ability to work together.”

“Don’t go too rough on them. I don’t want them to hate each other by the time it’s over. I need them to actually like each other still,” Altair said. He remembered team building training when Giovanni led Alpha. Most of the time they left annoyed with their squad mates if not outright hostile for a few hours afterwards.

“We make no promises,” Achilles said. “You’re all dismissed,” he added.

“Thank the God,” Jari said and walked away, still in his sim suit, pushing Diyari in a wheelchair.

The others took the sim suits off and left them with Rauf and Achilles before leaving. Altair eyed Malik when he didn’t leave right away. “Uh, did you need something?” he was getting really conflicting and mixed signals right now and it was off-putting. Rauf’s resonance and Malik’s didn’t feel anything alike to Altair. Rauf’s was familiar and comforting and Malik’s was like walking on a bed of needles. Through the whole thing he’d felt Malik’s anger rolling off him like smoke that clashed weirdly with Rauf’s outright worry and concern for his well-being. Rauf had been _scared_ for him when he’d fallen into that foam cube pit. Scared he’d been hurt.

“I wanted to yell at you some more,” Malik hissed at him. “You absolute fucking lunatic! What is even the matter with-

Altair muted his external mics and Malik raged at him in silence. Altair just stood there and let him do it. Let him get the venom out. Probably did him some good to have an actual reason to be mad at Altair and not just because he was breathing the same air Malik was.

Eventually Malik tired himself out, made a rude gesture, and stormed off. Altair just took his helmet off. “What a drama queen—!” he ended in a yelp when Rauf reached up and smacked him. “Hey!” he whined.

“You are a stupid, reckless, idiot,” Rauf scolded.

“Rauf,” he complained. “I’m fine.”

“That was dangerous!”

“Ugh, I’m just gonna put the helmet on and mute you again if you keep this up.”

Rauf snatched the helmet out of his hands. “You could have been hurt.”

“Yeah, but I’m not,” Altair said, “and neither is Malik.”

“But you could have! Don’t ever do something like that again. My heart can’t take your jet pilot antics.”

Altair’s lips twitched a little. “Alright, I’ll keep it in mind.” Rauf just scowled at him and Altair gave him a smile that was both flirty and cheesy and leaned down to him a little.

Rauf managed to hold the scowl for a full twenty seconds before caving and kissed him. “Don’t do it again,” Rauf said.

“Yes, sir,” Altair said, all cocky smirk.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Achilles said. “Your squad did very well, Altair. Many of them work well alone but others… not so much. Kanwai especially struggled. She got cornered by a Beta and Charlie and few Foxtrots and couldn’t get away from them. Mira got hers only at the last possible moment she could to return even as shortly after the time as she did but she also had difficulties.”

“Not a surprise. Kanwai and Mira are my two weaker members. Mira isn’t meant to field work.” Rauf and Achilles nodded in agreement.

“Chris brought _live grenades_ onto the training exercise,” Achilles said.

Altair blinked, “He did _what_?”

“Live grenades. Blew a hole on the room. The Red Queen has been sending me ping after ping about it. Do you know how much paperwork I’m going to have to do because of this?” Achilles asked.

“You’re the one who grabbed his sister,” Altair said. “I could have told you that was a stupid idea. He’s extremely protective of her and it insights some really violent tendencies in him. About on the level of what happened in Utah sort of violence.”

“Why does he had grenades on him?”

“He’s always got grenades on him,” Altair said. “I think he sleeps with them.”

Achilles and Rauf traded looks. “What is wrong with your squad, Altair?” Achilles asked.

“Nothing,” Altair gave them both a look. “They’re just young and most of them damaged. It happens. This training is to make them better than it. Now do you have anything constructive to say about my squad?” He took personal offense to it. Alpha was always full of misfits and lost toys, before Altair and even before Giovanni. It was almost a preference for Alpha Ones to pick the oddballs, the stars who shined so bright but never fit in other constellations. The ones who struggled and failed to fit in in other squads. Not because they couldn’t keep up, but because they were just different. Alpha was always full of weirdos and Altair’s Alpha family before he’d become Alpha-One had been a strange one. Most of them were dead now, or had gone cold turkey on Alpha. Didn’t talk to the survivors, didn’t hang out. They acted like they’d never been in Alpha because when you’d been a part of Alpha and had to lose it it was like losing a part of your soul and you’d rather pretend your family was dead than know you could never have what you’d once had with them.

The tradition carried on with Altair’s squad. A girl with core programmer abilities out in the field. A sniper. Twins. The best demo man Charlie had ever trained. A kid who could see with his eyes closed as good as with them open. Broken kids who’d come out of a closed Utah border with scars from the locals. Lovers who were so close it was like they were one person. Twins who Altair never saw as each other and demanded to be treated as different people. A girl who’d almost stayed in society and missed being outside. A kid who kept poisonous snakes as pets against fortress regulations and was only allowed to keep them because Altair allowed it. A medic who could steal and drive anything with wheels.

There was no real place for people like them in the fortress. Not really. In some or another they were unfit to work in other positions in the fortress. Too good at something, infighting jealousy in their peers, or good at nothing else but fighting. People who didn’t get along well with others but schooled in those of like minds. People who understood loyalty and had been shown none in their young lives until they’d flunked out all their first choices into Alpha and Altair had trusted them with being who they were, and who they could be.

“They’re young, and need work,” Achilles said.

“Then we’ll work on them,” Altair said. “Diyari is getting his prosthetics in a week or so. I want you to start working him into scenarios as soon as he can walk.”

“Altair, you should give him more time than that,” Rauf tried.

“He doesn’t want it,” Altair said, giving them both looks. “He’s fucking _miserable_ in that hospital. Every time I’ve seen him since Utah he’s asked me to make sure he’s still got his number. As soon as he can walk he’s going to beg me to come back. So as soon as he can walk I want him working.” Rauf sighed and looked at Achilles with a slight frown. “Now, constructive things about what happened today. Let’s hear it.”

“Well, there were some surprises, and some obvious actions,” Rauf said as people started to pour out of the sim building. It was all the Foxtrots and the Betas, Charlies, and Deltas. “It showed us priorities and how they deal with time crunches. I’ll bring the full breakdown for everyone to you tonight.”

“Okay, any standouts?” Altair asked as one of the Charlies walked up to them.

“The twins are incapable of dealing with situations when they’re separated. They are too dependent and-

“You need to control your dog, Altair,” Altair looked at who was talking. He recognized her of course. Heather, Beta-One. She’d been pretty once but the stress of running such a high octane, high testosterone, high pressure, squad like Charlie had turned her face hard, mean, and ugly. Her brown hair was cut very short and she looked pissed.

“Excuse me?” Altair asked mildly. Heather and he didn’t have the best record. She respected him as he did to her but she’d never quite gotten over him giving Chris another chance after what had happened with him in Charlie. The way he’d heard it there had been a huge blowout between the two and Heather had kicked him out in front of all of Charlie, humiliating him.

“Your stupid d-man brought live plastic onto a training sim.”

“I planned on having a conversation with him,” Altair said, still keeping mild.

“He could have hurt people, Altair,” she was still mad.

“Did he?” Altair asked her. “Or just some pride?”

Her face turned red in anger and humiliation. “If he did or not isn’t the point. He still brought them.”

“Everything alright over here?” Terry joined them and he also saw Faiz, Beta-One, walking over to them.

“There was a member of Alpha with live explosives in the training sim,” Heather said.

Terry frowned, then looked at Altair. “Really?”

“From what I’ve heard,” Altair said. “I was already going to have a conversation with him-

“Like that’s going to help,” Heather scoffed. “He’s a danger if he’ll bring that sort of stuff onto a sim. He shouldn’t be part of Alpha.”

Altair’s eyes narrowed. “What I do with my squad is none of your concern, Heather,” Altair said as Faiz finally joined them.

“Play nice, you two,” Faiz said. Faiz was an amicable older gentleman. Older than all of them and would probably be stepping down from his position soon but was stubborn as a mule. He’d command Beta until either the God or Mario showed up and told him his time as Beta-One was over and even then the God would have a harder time than Mario at accomplishing it.

“Don’t be on his side, Faiz. People could have been hurt. Actual disciplinary actions need to be taken against this. Alpha shouldn’t be allowed to get away with whatever they want.”

“Who’s this about?” Faiz asked Altair.

“Chris, he sleeps with grenades after a few close calls we’ve had. Too scared to be caught unprepared anymore. I didn’t think he’d actually _use_ them in a sim,” Altair explained

Terry looked at Heather, “This the same Chris that flunked out of Charlie four years ago?”

“The very same,” Altair said.

“Sounds like sour grapes to me,” Terry said.

“Terry-

“What?” he asked Heather. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Did he throw the grenade at anyone?” he asked Rauf and Achilles.

“No,” Achilles said. “It was a sticky grenade. He threw it at a wall to make a point and get everyone to back off.”

“See, no harm done except to the sim building,” Terry said with a shrug.

“You should not poke your nose in another squad’s business,” Faiz added to Heather. “Altair said he’d speak with Chris on his behavior.”

“If a Charlie did that you’d be calling for punishment,” she scowled at them.

“To be fair,” Terry said, “A Charlie had never blown up a sim building. They’re too well trained.”

“If someone had been hurt I’d agree with Heather,” Rauf said. “But as it stands no one was hurt, other than Achilles’ wrists from having to fill out a bunch of paperwork for the Red Queen for the accidental destruction of sim room materials. Now, I think this is quite enough discussion on the subject.”

“Well-

“Heather,” Rauf said and gave her a look. “That’s enough. Don’t make me bring it up the train that you were interfering with other squad training, or being insubordinate.”

She looked down at him and Altair looked away to smile. It was so easy for everyone to just… forget that Rauf was a First Class Assassin. There were only about a dozen of them in the fortress. Not even Altair was one. One for every branch of the fortress. Rauf was the Instructor First Class and he outranked everyone here, including Altair, and outranked everyone in the fortress except for Mario himself. Heather realize who she was trying to back talk and recoiled on herself. “Yes, sir,” she said and walked off.

“Tell your squad good job about today, for me,” Terry told Altair before leaving as well. Faiz only waved a little before loping off after the other two.

Altair gave Rauf a coy look. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard Heather call anyone but the Audi ‘sir’,” he teased Rauf.

Rauf frowned at him, “Oh shut up.”

“Now, we were talking about the twins?”

Rauf sighed. “Can’t we talk about it later once Achilles and I have gone over everything again? So we don’t have to rehash?”

“I guess,” Altair shrugged.

“Okay. Then we will.”

Achilles smacked Rauf on the shoulder, “You just get so uncomfortable pulling rank, huh, kid?” he jeered.

“He really does,” Altair agreed, nodding. “Needs a nap afterwards hmm?”

“Shut up, both of you or I’ll write you up,” Rauf threatened. That made them both laugh.

“I’d live to see that,” Achilles said. “Anyway. He’s right, other than a few things you won’t like to hear we’ll need a bit of time to go over the exercise to pick out things that can be improved.”

“And _you_ need to go talk to Chris,” Rauf told Altair.

“Yeah, I know,” Altair knew it wouldn’t take long but would be necessary. “I’ll see you tonight then. Dinner?” he asked Rauf.

“Probably,” Rauf nodded.

“Okay. See you at dinner,” he gave Rauf a kiss on the cheek before leaving them to the rest of their work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always liked the manga/anime trope of the big tough guy with a younger sister he adores and who has him TOTALLY WHIPPED. I thought Chris fit that trope perfectly lols.
> 
> Also reminder that views/kudos are good but comments are better.


	25. They Fell Out of the Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *presses the pause button on the Alpha stuff*
> 
> These kids are the epitome of the 'all knowing kid' trope and I don't even care lols

It was sunny in Paris and outside the city was bustling. From the top of the tower it was hard to see. Lucy sat curled up in a window seat, looking out onto the world. She’d been let out of one cage and fallen right into another one. A frown crossed her face. She shouldn’t be here. She wasn’t meant for this pretty glass cage where she felt like a princess locked in a tower. Her mother, or as close as someone like her could have to a mother, used to read her old German and French stories of princesses being rescued by noble princes who slayed dragons and rescued princesses from castles or their evil stepmothers.

That wasn’t going to happen. She’d liked the stories but that was all they were; stories.

A jet flew out in the distance, cutting through the clear blue Parisian sky like a dark little knife and leaving a trail of clouds in its wake. Lucy watched it go, wishing she could be on that jet. Going somewhere far from Paris. She wasn’t supposed to be in here. She was supposed to be _outside_ , with people. She just wanted to meet people. Instead that horrible man had her locked up.

“Lucy,” Warren said as a way to announce himself when he opened the door of her room. Some room. It had once been the office of some business man and they’d covered the glass walls in paper and curtains to give her some privacy. There was furniture but it was all orderly and uncomfortable, meant for working and not meant for play. Even the little bed in the corner was a pointless thing with white sheets and white pillow case.

She missed her plush toy. It was shaped like a sheep and she used to sleep with it every night under the anti-lights and cameras watching her. She knew she was being watched by cameras here too and it didn’t bother her. It was totally normal that someone would want to keep such a close eye on someone like her. She couldn’t imagine the others weren’t being monitored constantly. That was if there even were others and not just another of her mother’s stories. Ones to give her hope. The rest could have been failures. Wouldn’t be the first time.

“Lucy,” Warren said when she didn’t look at him or even move. She just kept looking out at the city of Paris. She’d read old books written before the Collapse. They said Paris was the city of love. She heard Warren come up behind her and lay his hand on her shoulder. “Did you hear me?” he asked.

“I did,” she said softly. “I just don’t feel like speaking to you.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” he said in a gentle tone. “Haytham’s calling for you.”

“I don’t care. He can go die,” she said and felt tears jump to her eyes. She’d made a bad choice. She’d made a _terrible_ choice and now she was a prisoner. Were the others having to deal with this? She sure hoped not.

“Girl, don’t make me call him up here,” Warren said, stern now, his hand squeezing her shoulder. “It’s outside.”

She looked at him at last. Once she’d been picked up by Abstergo she’d only been outside once and that was months ago now, almost a year. She hated all of them. Hated Warren’s fake kindness and William’s sly indifference and Hickey’s abject stupidity. But most of all she hated Haytham for being evil. A subtle evil that had the best intentions but was evil all the same. After the time he’d made her cry he’d basically left her alone, leaving Warren and William to look after her. She knew Warren gave him updates on her biweekly, because she turned up her ears to listen on days Haytham came to this part of the tower. She hadn’t been outside since the time she’d convinced Warren to let her out, back when she’d liked him, back when she trusted him.

“Outside?” she asked.

“Yes,” Warren nodded. “Up on one of the roof gardens.”

She squinted at him with distrust. He’d been trying to make her like him again since Haytham had told her Warren had been tasked with cutting her open and finding out how she worked. He just smiled at her a little. “Okay,” she said and slid off the window seat, the one piece of decorative furniture in the entire room, and followed Warren out to find Haytham.

They walked to an elevator and went down a few flights. Lucy stayed at the opposite side of the elevator from Warren. He’d never actually hurt her like Haytham had threatened but she was supposed to survive. Everything counted on her surviving and she wouldn’t survive if she wasn’t careful around these people. The elevator dinged and opened the doors so Lucy could follow Warren out and down a hallway to a door with no windows. He opened the door and Lucy squinted against the harsh sunlight. The windows of the tower were tinted a bit to help combat the sun. Outside it was blindingly white and hurt her eyes which had gotten used to the slightly dimmer light of the sunlight through tinted windows.

Lucy put her hand up to shield her eyes and saw Haytham sitting at a table made of wrought iron weaving. He was dressed all in white except for the buttons of his jacket which were dark blue, and the handkerchief tucked into the pocket which was also blue. Lucy looked up at Warren and he nodded towards Haytham. He wasn’t coming.

Lucy walked over to Haytham. There was an empty chair opposite him as well as a sweating pitcher of water filled with limes. Out here now Lucy realized it was warm but the wind was brisk so it was hard to tell. Haytham looked at her in his clean white clothes. “Have a seat, little girl,” he said, but not meanly.

She eyed him before pulling out the chair and sitting across from him. “What do you want?” she asked.

“To start over,” he said. “I realize we got off on the wrong side of one another. I also know what you are and the very interesting opportunity you present us. It doesn’t do well for you to go around being afraid of me, or hating everyone around you.” He stopped and poured a glass of the lime infused water for himself and then one for her. She took the glass cup but did not drink. The cup started to sweat almost immediately.

“I want nothing to do with you,” she said.

“Except you know you won’t get out of here if you fight me. Your… caretakers sent a message out to anyone who could listen and understand it about you, the others-

She slammed the glass on the table so hard it almost broke. “They wouldn’t,” she was furious by the lie.

Haytham did not react to her outburst. “So, there are others then?” She realized too late it was a trick. Shucks. She should have guessed. She should have known better. She shied away from Haytham. “Do you want to meet them?”

“You don’t have them,” Lucy said. “And they’re no where _near_ here, you rotten man,” she scolded him.

“No,” he agreed. “But I have ways of knowing where they may be. I’m a very powerful man, I can get things I need, things I want. Do you want to be let out one day, find the others?”

Lucy’s heart ached. “Yes,” she said. All she wanted was to meet other people. To know people beyond this glass cage. The people she’d been with before Abstergo had killed them had been good people. Better than them. They’d been researchers they said. She knew they’d been lying to her but she was okay with that. She’d rather they be nice and lying than mean and lying like Haytham was.

“Then let’s start again, hmm?”

“How?”

“For starters, let’s not be so hostile to one another? Or to Warren. For a time I know you liked him best-

“He wants to cut me up.”

“He’s already moved on to other mysteries. The oddity of a girl who fell out of the sky is of little consequence to him in the long run. Now you want to go outside. We can go outside. Down to Paris and walk down the avenues looking in the pretty shops and see the people. Do you want that?”

“Yes,” Lucy said.

“I just want some measure of cooperation from you. Nothing more. And that if I do take you outside you must stay by my side _at all times_. If you don’t you won’t get to go outside anymore.”

“If you can catch me,” she said and stuck her tongue out at him.

“I will,” Haytham said. She shivered a little and didn’t doubt him. “I want to help you find these others like you. Don’t you want that too?” She nodded and hated him for being bigger and older and stronger than her. “The signal broadcast said getting you and the rest together would allow a miracle to happen. I want to see what it is. So you will stay with me and when I think appropriate you will get a chance to see the others. In return you will comply with our gentle wishes and be nice to those who you are in the direct care of. Simple things from you for such grand promises?”

She looked at Haytham in silence. “I want something else,” she eventually said.

He sighed a little. “What?”

“You’re a mean, nasty, cruel man. I can tell just by looking at you. But you’re strong, and dangerous. No one messes with you. You didn’t even do anything to Warren and he was afraid of what you _might_ have done to him.” Haytham’s eyebrows went up a little. “I want to learn to be like that too.”

Haytham’s smile was sly and knowing. “You want to be feared, girl?”

“I want respect, I want power. I want to kill you so I will never be helpless again,” she said fiercely.

That amused Haytham. He chuckled a bit and when he leaned forward his blue buttons twinkled like evil eyes. “We have a deal then,” he said and held out his big hand to her. Her mother had taught her religious things so she would understand the beliefs of others outside but she herself didn’t believe. She didn’t believe things unless she saw them with her own two eyes. When she reached out to grab his hand her eyes told her she was shaking hands with the devil.

—

He was going to go crazy.

Daniel’s throat was raw from screaming and he’d beat his hands against the door so hard he’d bruised the bones of his hands despite not even damaging the skin. A very hard thing to do when the walls and floor were made of a soft springboard foam.

They’d put him in a little room with only a screen displaying gentle moving images of animals in the Australian bush for company. No bed, not even a blanket, and stripped naked. He knew what they were doing. They wanted to make sure he didn’t kill himself, somehow. They’d caught him fair and square they thought. He was theirs. Daniel simmered with rage and when one of their toy soldiers came to give him food he screamed more and threw it at them as best he could with his damaged hands. He wouldn’t let them treat him. He wouldn’t let them touch him and just screamed obscenities and the most vulgar curses he knew at them in every language he knew and Daniel knew over a dozen. He had plenty of ammunition for his hatred.

He hated these women. He hated every one of them!

Coincidence didn’t exist. He’d shown up exactly where he was supposed to. His grandfather told him that. You were never late, you were never early, you never arrived somewhere you were not needed. You arrived exactly when and where you were supposed to be.

Daniel sat in a furious slump against the padded room. The screen showing soothing video of nature animals was too high for him to reach but large enough to be unavoidable. Above the screen was a small, shiny, lens of a camera. They were watching him. He’d given them quite a show with his tantrums but the black camera lens was unflinching.

He didn’t know how long he’d been here. A few days maybe? He hadn’t eaten anything and was totally exhausted. He hadn’t eaten since he’d seen Cain Barrows. They were wearing him down and he hated them for it.

Meal time came and Daniel pulled himself to his feet to fight. To do anything against those armored women who were his great tormentors. So it was to his great surprise that a man came into the little room.

They were strange and beautiful and Daniel looked up at them with big blue eyes. Other than Cain he’d never seen another person outside of his birthplace and all the people where Daniel had been born were old. This man was young, in his early thirties at most. He was lithe with elegant features, long eyelashes framing dark eyes, and had graceful, long-fingered hands. They came closer to Daniel and crouched in front of him, for the first time getting at Daniel’s level. “Hello,” the man said in a very pleasant accent. “I’m Rho. What’s your name?”

Daniel was so surprised he actually answered, “Daniel,” he said and his voice came out as a rasp. He reached out and touched Rho’s face in confusion. He was pretty sure boys weren’t supposed to be beautiful, but Rho was beautiful. It was strange.

“Nice to meet you, Daniel,” Rho said and took Daniel’s hand. “Are you hungry?” Daniel shook his head even as his stomach growled. Rho just smiled. “Would you like some food?” Daniel started shaking his head before it turned into a nod. Yes, he wanted food. He was very hungry. “Let’s go get you some, hmm?” Rho was so pleasant Daniel forgot to hate him.

Rho stood up and Daniel took three steps before he dug his heels in. “Cain,” he said sternly.

“Hmm?” Rho asked.

“Where’s Cain? Where is he?” Daniel demanded.

Rho just cocked his head to the side. “I don’t know who that is.”

“They attacked him, us-

“There was no one else when they found you in the desert, Daniel,” Rho said gently and touched Daniel’s hair. “You almost died of heat stroke out there.”

Daniel scowled at Rho and yanked his hand out of the man’s and marched back over to the wall and sat down again. “Fuck you, you dog humping cunt,” he said, half of those words weren’t even in a language the man even understood but the intent was clear. “I am not going anywhere or eating anything until I see Cain.”

Rho frowned at him and went back over to him. “There is no Cain, Daniel,” he said with absolute sincerity. “There never was. You must have hallucinated him from your trek through the outback. Not uncommon. Sun-sickness affects everyone in different ways. Most people do hallucinate in some way.”

“I did not,” Daniel growled. “I’m not some garden variety shit head like you. I’m better.”

“There was no one there, Daniel. Now why don’t we go get you something to eat?”

Daniel folded his arms and pointedly looked away from Rho. Rho waited but Daniel did not move. Even when his stomach growled and growled louder still. Daniel _was_ so hungry but he’d rather starve than go with someone he hadn’t chosen. It was the only god damn choice he had in his entire life, he took it very seriously.

Rho waited a bit more before realizing Daniel wasn’t going to move. He sighed. “Very well,” he stood. “We’ll try again tomorrow I guess.”

Daniel’s stomach growled mournfully when Rho left and Daniel laid down on his side, facing away from the camera and squeezed his eyes closed. He wanted his grandfather. That wouldn’t happen any time soon. So instead he just wanted Cain and hoped he wasn’t dead.

—

Desmond screamed and at the very last moment let go of the rope to sail through the air. He landed with a thud on his hands and knees and looked down. He’d made it!

Instantly he jumped to his feet and looked back at his classmates and lifted both arms with a yell. Everyone else yelled back. He was the first one who’d made it across the gap with success. The rope swung back and their instructor took it to allow someone else a try. Everyone had tried and since Desmond was the new kid he got to try last even though Tazim said he was cool now. Weird new kids were at the bottom of the pecking order. Desmond didn’t mind too much.

Tazim’s face was serious when their instructor gave him the rope. Desmond just smiled a big smile at him. Tazim didn’t smile back. No, Desmond supposed he wouldn’t. Tazim only smiled when they weren’t in class. In class he treated everything deadly serious, especially his ‘competition’ with Desmond. Desmond didn’t see it as a competition but that didn’t stop Tazim.

Like Desmond had just done Tazim took a few steps back to take a sprinting leap. The gap between the two platforms was wide enough that it was difficult to cross without sprinting or doing a second swing. The class ahead of Desmond had done each of those independently but none of them in the same swing. Tazim swung towards Desmond and he waved at his friend with a smile. He waved again when Tazim started to swing away and Desmond watched him work his entire body to get more momentum on the next swing.

Desmond took a few steps back as Tazim came swinging towards him and he released the rope at the top of his arc. He’d either make the thickly padded platform or he’d fall into the foam cubes below between the two platforms. Desmond didn’t help, they weren’t supposed to help each other in exercises like this, but Tazim didn’t need the help. Desmond had landed with all the grace of a cannonball. Tazim landed on his feet, only having to bend his legs a bit to not fall over as elegant as one of the older kids or an adult. Desmond offered Tazim his hand and with a roll of his eyes Tazim gave him the high five. Desmond considered that a win! Tazim didn’t usually do high fives. He didn’t fish bump either, which for Desmond was weird. Apparently they didn’t fist bump in the Assassins.

Their class cheered again when Tazim made it to Desmond’s side and the instructor handed the rope off to Fast. Now that two of them had done it and shown everyone how to do it the rest of the class did it perfectly. Half of them landed on their feet. The other half landed on their knees or landed in a tumble and roll. Last came their instructor who went from the rope to gracefully step onto the platform like she was stepping down from the last stair of a flight of stairs. The thought of Tazim landing as gracefully as an adult vanished in that instant in Desmond’s head and he was reminded they were still children.

After that they played hide and seek in real environment made of tubes, 3D shapes with holes cut in them, poles, fences, stairs and little hidey holes. Desmond was first ‘it’ because he was new. He didn’t use EVs because it was cheating. Using them would have made the game way too easy for Desmond and that wasn’t fun.

Hide and seek for novices wasn’t about finding one person in your class first. It was about finding everyone either as quickly as possible or without alerting them you were there. Desmond was _not_ great at stealth but he was good at seeking others. Whoever was the last found got to choose who to be ‘it’ next. Sometimes they picked themselves but hiding was usually a lot more fun than seeking since you got to explore the environment the program admins had built for them that week. They always hid little surprises in the environment and it was bragging rights if you found even one of them since they were so well hidden.

They played hide and seek until the end of the day and Desmond was _just_ about to be found when their instructor said lessons were over for the day. They gathered around her as she gave them instruction for their last few minutes saying that tomorrow a doctor was going to come up from the hospital and test their EVs to see who had unlocked them and who hadn’t. Everyone talked in both hushed and excited tones as they left for the day to have about half an hour before dinner.

Desmond and Tazim managed to cram into an elevator full of older teenagers who were talking loudly about something or another. Desmond turned to Tazim, “Why’s everyone so excited about tomorrow?” he asked.

“It’s just another day to show off,” Tazim shrugged. “And to see where we’re weak and who needs more help.”

“Is there a way to see what you have open?” Desmond asked and moved closer to Tazim when two of the older boys pushed each other in a friendly way. They weren’t paying attention to two little boys.

Thankfully the elevator dinged and he and Tazim left quickly so the elevator could continue up to the older novice floor. Levels one through five lived on floor twenty-seven with fairly large communal areas for each class to help build relationships and even bedrooms were shared. On floor twenty-eight levels six through nine got shared living spaces and private bedrooms while the level ten rooms were basically adult living quarters. Gave the young adults privacy and the little kids could be better watched when all grouped together.

That and apparently teenagers were super moody and annoying and when you went through puberty you just went totally crazy between your EVs and hormones. Darim was like that half the time now. Sometimes he was super nice and great to be around, other times, when he hung around his year mates, he was mean and nasty. Other times entire classes were postponed because half of the kids in it were overstimulated from the clashing of their EVs and hormones that really didn’t go well together. Apparently it started happening regularly at sixth level or so. Or so Desmond had been told. He didn’t know anyone on floor twenty-eight so had no reason to visit. It was the only floor girls and boys were kept separate too but Desmond had no idea why.

“See what EVs you have? Sure, in a way,” Tazim shrugged as they walked down the hall to their year door. As level three they were pretty far from the door. Level five, one, and two, got the doors closest to the elevators because they were little kids or about to move up to level twenty-two. Next year they’d be moved to the furthest door and that would be quite a walk to get home from the elevator.

“In a way?” Desmond asked.

“Well short of hooking your brain up to a scanner they can’t know _for sure_ ,” Tazim said. “But doctors are really good at telling EVs. Tomorrow they’re just going to see who unlocked Classic and who didn’t.”

“What’s Classic?” Tazim gave him a look. “Don’t give me that look. I’m not born here,” he said defensively and folded his arms.

Tazim opened their level door. The main room was big and while there were rooms for beds they only had about three and a half walls. There were no doors in the level room except to the bathrooms and showers which was the only real place you could get some actual privacy. The openings to the bedrooms had a curtain you could pull across but that was it. They were the only ones there yet and Tazim went to the bedroom he shared with two other boys to change his clothes. Desmond just sat on the couch and watched the screen table which was displaying fish in a pond.

Tazim came back out from behind the curtain in all white clothes and sat on the screen table so he was facing Desmond. “Classic is kinda grey and fuzzy but shows things of interest in crystal clarity. The things that are clear are usually colored too. Like red and blue.”

“Can you do it?” Desmond asked.

“Of course I can,” Tazim said proudly and his eyes turned gold. “My mom and dad resonated really well so I could do it younger than other kids. They say the better people resonate the more skilled their kids are.”

“It’s a genetic compatibility issue. Wide enough genetic differences,” Desmond said unthinkingly.

“What?” Tazim rose his eyebrows at him.

“Uh… nothing. I was just repeating what I heard Diyari say one time is all uh-“

Thankfully he was saved when the rest of their level showed up, talking and carrying on. Before the door closed another figure, a bit taller than everyone, entered.

“Darim!” Desmond waved. The rest of the kids in his level ignored him. They went to change or go to the bathroom or nap before dinner.

Darim came into the room, glancing around, probably remembering his own stay in the third level room, and stood to the side of the couch. “C’mon,” he beckoned to Desmond.

“What’s up?” Desmond asked.

“Dad wants everyone to have dinner together tonight,” Darim said. “To celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?” Desmond asked.

“End of Alpha training from what I heard- oh. Oops,” he looked at Tazim guiltily.

Tazim’s eyes were wide, “Your dad is in Alpha?” he accused Desmond.

“Uh…”

“C’mon.” Darim grabbed Desmond’s wrist to save them from having to explain and just hauled Desmond out of the room.

“That was stupid,” Desmond said when they were out in the hallway.

“Yeah it was,” Darim huffed. “Anyway. Let's go. Dad wanted an early dinner.”

“You _sure_ it was the end of training?” Desmond asked as he walked next to Darim, having to take two steps for every one of his.

“Pretty sure. Something about training. I wasn’t really paying attention,” Darim admitted as they got to the elevator. “You can ask him when we get there.”

“Okay,” Desmond said as Darim called an elevator. “Darim,” Desmond said as they were waiting. Darim just ‘hmm’d at him. “What EVs do you have?”

Darim looked at Desmond sternly. “That’s a really rude question to ask,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because it is a measure of our worth and kids haven’t opened all their potential ones up.”

Desmond blinked at him, “I’m not going to judge you or anything. I’m just curious.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re getting evaluated on ours tomorrow. Is it really important?”

One of the area service elevators stopped at their floor and some kids in level four spilled out all groaning in pain from whatever exercise they’d just been doing. Desmond was not looking forward to fourth level. He and Darim were the only ones going up. Usually everyone liked to spend half an hour to forty-five minutes relaxing before they went to dinner at six thirty but going early to not be around so many people seemed like something Altair would do on purpose.

“It’s pretty important,” Darim said as they got into the elevator and he pushed the button for floor twenty-nine. “Your EVs help determine what you’ll do when you’re an adult since they show everyone what you’re good at.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, take dad. He’s got _all_ of them, making him an awesome field agent because he’s prepared for everything. You’ve met Mira right?”

“Uh-huh,” Desmond nodded.

“Dad always calls Mira a ‘field tech’ since she’s got the tech EVs unlocked but only like one or two actual agent EVs.”

“Then why isn’t she in tech?” Desmond asked.

“Because she didn’t want to be.”

“So they can determine your future, but it isn’t set in stone?”

“Nope,” Darim nodded as the elevator stopped. A bell unlike the normal stopping bell sounded saying an elevator from the adult halls was trying to take that position and the space needed to be vacated. They left the elevator quickly. “It just gives you an idea. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t important.”

“What about you? You have EVs open right? That’s why you’re all moody and mean sometimes.”

Darim scowled at him. “That has nothing to do with opening your EVs,” he scolded Desmond as they walked into the canteen. “And I have three,” he said, just as proud as Tazim had been.

“Is that a lot?”

“For someone my age, yeah,” Darim nodded. “They usually really open up when you’re fifteen or so. Most of the girls in my level have two, half the guys have only one. The rest, none. Cause girls just go through it first.”

“There’s Altair and Rauf,” Desmond said, tugging on Darim’s sleeve as they looked around the canteen for the two. He pointed to show Darim.

Altair had put them in a booth and he was sitting next to Rauf, across from Sef what was very busily and seriously drawing something on a piece of paper with some crayons. Desmond and Darim shared the same sort of gross face when they came upon them and Altair had his mouth close to Rauf’s ear. Desmond knew he could dial his ears up to hear what he was saying but he really didn’t want to. He’d learned his lesson about snooping by turning his ears up within the first week of being here and now kept them nice and low so he wouldn’t get surprised like that. The teenagers weren’t _that_ far from his room and you heard all sorts of stuff from them that made Desmond still got red faced remembering.

“I brought him,” Darim announced as a way to draw Altair and Rauf apart.

“Oh good,” Altair said. “C’mon, sit,” he beckoned to them. “Sef, come over here,” he added.

“Ah! Sef not like that,” Rauf tried as Sef stood up in the booth seat and climbed over the table. Altair just laughed and gathered Sef up into his lap so he could go back to his drawing. Desmond laughed too and smiled brightly at Sef’s antics and Rauf trying to discipline him. Didn’t work very well when it was obvious Altair so fully approved. Eventually Rauf just gave up and announced he was going to get a waiter so they could eat.

—

The sand felt nice between her toes and it was cold from the previous high tide. Waves lapped further out at shore and above the sun was starting to get warm. She’d been walking for hours along the beach like a little white ghost against the white sand beaches and clear blue water.

She could still hear the argument her parents had had earlier about it being ‘too soon’. They hadn’t had a choice. It was a good time and despite the shrunken population the world was still so big. They’d need their entire lives to find what they were looking for. Which was the entire point. They all got to start at the same time, it was only fair.

In the distance Hannah saw a town. She was in no hurry to get to it. She’d have her fill of other people soon. Funny that it was so close to the water. Tides were irregular and could rise and fall thirty feet in some places. As she got closer she saw the town was empty. An old beach town that had been evacuated after the water levels had risen. Hannah remembered learning about that. Before the Collapse the planet had been so hot that they’d melted most of the ice caps. The planet was cooler now but the ice caps hadn’t fully reformed. It’d be decades or some centuries before the ice caps returned to their great glory. They’d melted the ice caps in two centuries, it’d take more than that to replace them.

Hannah went into the town. It was deserted but there was a road and stores. Most of it had been evacuated or looted but there were some things that remained. She rummaged around for some food and water. She found no edible food but did come across some water in old plastic bottles. She tasted one and waited to see if it’d make her sick. Pre Collapse plastic could be dangerous. It ended up not making her sick so she drank deeply and kept a second bottle with her as she walked.

When it got dark she left the road and climbed a tree, falling deep asleep in the branches. She woke to the sound of speckled mousebirds crying in the morning. She drank the rest of her water and continued on down the road. She found an intersection and stood there wondering which way to go.

She was still thinking about it when, of all things, a car sped past. It drove another hundred feet before stopping and turning around, driving back towards her. The car stopped and several curious brown faces peered out from the window. Hannah supposed she didn’t really look the part for where she’d come from. Her parents said the others looked like natives but she was the one who showed the most promise so despite the pale skin and red hair they’d decided on her or they’d be behind. The people in the car were descendants of a country that no longer existed and used to be run by white people. There were still light skin among them but nothing like Hannah.

“Ah, hello,” she waved shyly.

They rolled the window down. “What are you doing out here?”

“I’m lost,” she said. “I’m looking for my friends.”

They looked at the driver who shrugged. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Wherever there’s people.”

“We’re going to Pinetown, do you want to come?”

“Are there lots of people there?” Hannah asked.

They laughed a little. “Yes, there are.”

“Then yes, I would love to,” Hannah said.

They got out of the car and opened the door for her. “My name is Lefa, that is Nku,” he motioned to the driver who waved and smiled a big white smile at her.

“I’m Hannah,” she said.

“You are very far from home, hm?” Lefa asked as he got into the passenger seat.

“What gave it away?” she asked and Nku turned around again and started driving the way they’d been going. Lefa nor Nku said anything, knowing it would be rude to say it was because Hannah was white. She knew they were thinking it. “Cause I’m pale skinned, right?”

“Ah-

“It’s okay. I know I’m weird looking,” she said. “I’ll turn freckle brown in no time in the sun,” she smiled and that made both men laugh.

Lefa and Nku were nice men who talked passionately about their professions, which was animal preservation. The radical climate changes the for the last few hundred years had been awful for all animals and ecosystems in Africa along with everywhere else. The lack of humans absolutely everywhere had helped it somewhat but dramatic heating had caused long droughts during dry seasons and such great periodic rain storms that it would flood everything and wash away top soil that usually didn’t get eroded by wet seasons. Hannah let them talk to her about it and she listened with more than passing interest. She’d never met other people before so anything they had to say was fascinating to her. They lamented about all the animals that used to roam free in Africa that now only existed in zoos and that even more were extinct.

They weren’t going to Pinetown for work however. Rather they had just finished working and Pinetown was home. Lefa was excited since he’d been gone for eight weeks and missed his girlfriend. Nku then spent forty minutes bemoaning Lefa and him being a hopeless romantic.

It was a few hours to Pinetown from where they had found Hannah and by the time they were there Hannah decided she liked these two men very much. When they arrived at Pinetown Hannah stuck her head out of the car window to see better since they drove at the city head on. When the seas had risen big coastal cities like Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, George and Durban had been mostly abandoned or shrunken in favor of cities further inland. Pinetown was one of the cities to ‘benefit’ from the rising sea levels. In her history instruction she’d seen pictures of old Pinetown and new Pinetown. Before the Collapse it had been a fairly large town outside of Durban. Now Pinetown was one of the larger cities in south Africa with only Bloemfontein or Johannesburg being bigger.

Pinetown was plenty big. It had great, tall, buildings made of steel and glass and suburbs that Nku navigated easily and great concrete highways that looped all about to fight congestion. They didn’t drive all the way into the city and instead stopped in a suburb to get something to eat. When Lefa and Nku found out Hannah hadn’t eaten in two days they’d bought her a big meal and she ate it happily.

Then came the question of what to do with Hannah. Obviously the two men could not just take her with them. Eventually they settled on taking her to a police station for if nothing else guidance on what they should do with the little girl.

The police station was clean and bright and the officers wore crisp burgundy uniforms and black felt hats with shiny brims. Lefa spoke to the officer at the front desk while Nku stayed back with Hannah and showed her pictures on his multi-device of the animals they’d been working with on their conservation expedition. She liked the pretty birds but hadn’t listened to what they were called.

The officer came over to Hannah and Nku and asked Nku several questions. Then he looked down at Hannah before crouching down. “Hello, Hannah,” the officer said. He was fairly light skinned, lighter than Lefa or Nku, but still considerably darker than Hannah.

“Hello,” she said shyly.

“I’m a police officer, I want to make sure you’re safe here. Lefa and Nku say they found you on the side of the road. Is that true?” She nodded. “What were you doing out there?”

“Looking for my friends,” she said.

“Where are your parents?”

“Somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“Gone,” she decided. Best for the adults to think her parents were just dead.

“I’m sorry to hear that. Did you leave them out there?”

“No,” she said.

“Were Lefa and Nku nice to you when they brought you here?”

“Yes,” Hannah said with a smile. “They’re both really nice. They’re nature conservationists.”

The officer stood up and said to Lefa and Nku, “I have someone from child services coming now. You boys have done a good deed today.”

“Thank you,” Lefa said, beaming.

“We’ll take it from here since you filled out the paperwork about it.”

“You’ll contact us on what happens to her, right?” Lefa asked. “Wanna make sure everything works out, you know,” he shrugged a little.

“We can do that,” the officer said. He looked back down at Hannah, “Why don’t you come with me little lady,” he offered her his hand. “Let’s see if we can’t find something for you to do while we wait for the child services agent to come.”

“Okay,” Hannah said and took his hand. Both Lefa and Nku waved to her before leaving the station and Hannah followed the officer further back into the police station. Not a few of the other officers stared at her for her pale skin and red hair. She did her best to ignore it.

—

The elevator cracked through old speakers that had been around probably since before the Collapse. That was the only way they could make such a nice sound come out so demonic. The metal doors slid open and Clay walked out into the hallway with the mail tucked under his arm including one of Leo’s packages. He’d bought some new drafting paper and pencils thanks to his new contract. It was special drafting paper laced with some substance that while allowed for folding and rolling didn’t crease or suffer from curved edges. It was high grade stuff and too expensive for Leo usually but after his first contract with the FRN military thanks to Ezio he could afford the expensive stuff.

Clay ducked into their apartment in the mega block. Despite the influx of money it was still a bit shabby but Clay liked it. Leo had spent most of the money to buy them both new clothes and fill the kitchen with food on a regular basis. Other than buying the expensive drafting paper Leo had hoarded the rest. Clay figured that was understandable. Poor people were protective of their money and he’d seen firsthand Leo look about to have mental breakdowns about money. Clay understood the idea of money but he’d grown up in a bubble and before Leo had no real experience with it. Leo was saving what he could in case his next contract didn’t come through, so he could still pay the bills and keep food on the table.

“Leo,” Clay called as he locked the door. “Your drafting paper came in.”

Leo poked his head out of his bedroom that was also his studio. “What?” he asked and then his eyes were drawn to the thick tube Clay was holding. “Oh!” he bounded out of the room and collected the tube from Clay. “Excellent.” Then Leo frowned a little.

“What’s the matter?” Clay asked him.

“Hmm? Oh, nothing. Don’t you worry about it,” Leo said with a smile. Clay just nodded, but he was curious. “Now I can really get to work and not just these messy sketches.”

“Can I watch?” Clay asked.

“Can you be quiet and not ask any questions?” Leo asked him. Clay pursed his lips and nodded. “ _Really_?” Leo asked, giving him a knowing look. Clay jutted his bottom lip out at Leo in a pout. “I think it’s better you stay out here and play your Gearbox while I work,” Leo said kindly. Clay loved and hated that about Leo. Even when he didn’t give in to Clay he was just so nice about it and Clay couldn’t even be annoyed by him.

“I guess,” he grumbled.

“Or go outside and make some friends,” Leo said. Clay deflated at that and walked away. Leo just stood there a few seconds, not knowing what he’d said but decided to not push the subject when Clay sat down in from of the screen and turned on his Gearbox. Salai came and laid down with his head in his lap, whining to get attention. Clay absently scratched his ears but didn’t engage with the Australian Shepherd either.

The whole ‘make friends’ was a sore spot for Clay. One reason was because he didn’t understand how kids acted. There had been no kids where he’d grown up. Only him, and adults, and the promise that Clay would get to meet kids when he left. And then there was the other part that kids were just _so stupid_ and he couldn’t stand it. Clay knew he was very smart and that the kids around him weren’t on his level. The kids at school, which was also in the mega block, were mostly unmotivated and practically refused to learn. Clay just had to sit in the back of the class in agony as they went over concepts he’d understood since he was six.

But the real crux of the problem was that when Clay touched them they just felt lifeless to him. When he touched Leo or adults he could feel a buzz from them like low electrical current. Around kids his age there was nothing like that. They were inert as dirt and twice as stupid.

He couldn’t stand being around children, or younger people. They just made him confused and not a little angry that they were so much lesser than him. And these were children people had chosen to have, even in a mega block, so they were invested in providing the best for their children and wanted their children to succeed. And yet they didn’t. They just did nothing. Clay could see the apathy on the faces of his teachers too. They knew most of the kids in the public mega block school didn’t want to be there. That they were just there because it was the law, that they hated learning and would rather be running wild in the hallways of the mega block. Clay had no problem if they did or if they actually found such things fulfilling. But that didn’t fulfill him.

Clay had been staring at the startup screen of his Gearbox for a few minutes now, looking at nothing. The only thing that would fulfill him really would be to find the others. He wished he didn’t know they were out there because then he wouldn’t resent the other kids so much. He knew, out there, somewhere, was someone who would understand him and could, literally, speak his language. No one spoke his native language and he was starting to think in the one Leo had brought him into which upset him. Not that he resented Leo for it. Leo had been the best option with so much of South America unpopulated after entire populations and nations had been wiped out. Either from lack of births, killing one another, or immigrating into countries with access to AWCs.

It was why he’d left early and had to _beg_ his dad to let him go even though it was ahead of schedule. It could have been his only chance. No one came to their part of the world and Clay didn’t look like the natives. He still resented his parents for that. If he’d been made brown with black hair and black eyes he wouldn’t have cared and would have been happy with someone else. But _Leo_ was the only person he’d ever seen come close to where he’d been born that looked like him.

Clay turned off the Gearbox. He really didn’t feel like playing games. Instead he got up and went to the kitchen. Just a few months ago it had been empty. Now it was full and Clay helped himself to some jelly filled gummies. Salai sat in front of him, wagging his tail on the tile, and Clay gave him a few treats too which had the shepherd licking his fingers excitedly.

He supposed he could do his homework as pointless as it was. He already knew most of the information. It was something to do at least. He was working on it when there was a knock on the door. He looked at the door, wary. Salai jumped up and trotted over to the door to sniff at it before he started wagging his tail. Having a dog in a mega block was great since there was the potential for a lot of danger in the block. From drug dealers to bad cops to hooligans to thieves it had everything a regular city block had that was dangerous. Clay kept Leo in the dark about other potential threats. Salai didn’t bark at knocks he just sniffed them out. If they were bad he’d sit in front of the door and if they were good he’d wag his tail.

Clay went over to the door and opened it a little. He wasn’t expecting the teenager who pushed the door open all the way. “Hey!” Ezio said loudly and laughed when Salai barked and put his front paws on Ezio’s waist for ear scratches. “Hello to you too, Salai,” Ezio said.

“Salai, down,” Clay said sternly. Salai dropped down but his tail was wagging furiously. Salai loved Ezio. Ezio also usually brought little meat treats with him when he visited for him and Salai was a suck up.

“Hey, Clay,” Ezio said, all smiles and easy good nature.

“Hi,” Clay said. He still wasn’t sure about Ezio. He was a nice guy sure but he seemed almost _too_ nice.

“What’s with the look?”

“Look?” Clay asked.

“Yeah, this one,” Ezio said and put his finger in the corner of his mouth and pulled his lips down giving him a comical expression like a tragedy mask. Clay couldn’t help but laugh at Ezio’s stupid face. Clay just shrugged. “Oh cmon,” Ezio bemoaned. “Don’t gimme that,” he finally came inside and closed the door behind him. He hunkered down in front of Clay. “You know I have a brother your age,” he said. “He likes to act all nonchalant about stuff too.”

Clay didn’t say what he was thinking right away. He waited until he’d thought it out before saying, “Are you my friend, Ezio?”

Ezio blinked. “Well, if you want me to be, sure,” Ezio said with a smile. “I’m Leo’s friend so I guess I’m yours too.”

“Good. So Leo will stop bothering me about making friends.”

Ezio cocked his head at him a bit. “Why would he do that? Don’t you have other friends?” Clay scowled. “You know what, forget I asked,” Ezio said and stood up. “Wanna go do something?”

“Like what?”

“I dunno. There’s a cinema down the street, we could go. You ever been?”

Clay almost said yes out of principle before realizing he didn’t have to lie. “No,” he said. “Movies are too expensive.”

“Pft, yeah but they’re fun. C’mon, let’s go. There’s a flicker from the FRN showing right now.”

“Is it one you’ve seen?”

“No, haven’t been in the FRN in like a year,” Ezio said. “I told you, remember?”

“Oh, right.” Clay thought it was weird that Ezio had backpacked and basically walked across the northern FRN to get to California after he’d graduated grade school. No one in California would ever do something like that.

“Let’s go.”

“Okay, I need to tell Leo, and ask if he’ll give me some money.”

“Okay,” Ezio said and Clay went to Leo’s room and knocked. He waited and then opened the door. Leo was bent over his drafting desk, working like a man possessed. Not a lot inspired Leo as much as a paycheck. “Leo,” Clay called softly.

Despite not trying to startle him Leo still jumped and turned in his rotating stool. “Oh, Clay. What is it?”

“Ezio’s here.”

“He is? Oh good.”

“He wants to take me to the cinema.”

“That’s nice of him,” Leo said with an easy smile and some of his messy blonde hair dropped in front of his face. Leo didn’t even notice because he didn’t brush it away.

“Can I-“ Clay stopped and looked up when the door opened a bit more. Ezio was standing behind him.

“How’s it going, genius?” Ezio asked Leo.

“Ah!” Leo ran his fingers through his hair. “Good, very good. Your father is a very understanding guy and very generous.”

“When he wants to be,” Ezio said, smiling. “So I’m stealing the kid for a bit. Must see flicker at the cinema is one from the FRN, figure it’d be a good culture exposure.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Leo said. Clay scowled a little. Leo had been unengaged when he’d shown up to talk but for Ezio he was present. Was it cause Clay was a kid? That was annoying. He _hated_ being a kid. He couldn’t wait till he was older and people took him seriously. Leo slid off his stool. “Lemmie give you some cash for-

“Don’t worry about it,” Ezio waved him off.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, least I can do since you’re helping me so much,” Ezio said brightly and patted Clay’s shoulder.

Leo’s shoulders slumped a little. “You’ve helped _us_ so much Ezio, please.”

“Absolutely not,” Ezio said. “I’m not hurting for cash, you deserve it.”

Leo’s eyes were all big and Clay thought he looked about to cry. Not because he was sad like Clay had seen him do before, but because he was happy. “If you’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” Ezio said.

“Alright,” Leo consented. “Just don’t get him hyped on sweets,” Leo gave Clay a stern look and Clay looked away, biting his lower lip.

“Promise,” Ezio said and Clay pouted at them both.

“Well have fun. And make sure you bring him home before dark,” Leo added.

“I will,” and Ezio grabbed Clay’s shoulder and steered him out of the room, closing Leo’s door behind them.

Clay grabbed his coat before following Ezio out. They took the elevator down to the ground and they got tickets for the movie. “So,” Ezio said as they stood in the lobby. “What kind of snacks do you want?”

“I can’t have any, Leo said no sweets,” Clay sighed.

“So? What Leo doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Ezio said with a mischievous grin. “C’mon, let’s see what they got. We’ll get something good,” and Clay smiled as Ezio steered him towards the concession stand.

—

The sky dribbled water and was the color of thick, wet, wool. Ugly and matted that brought a slight chill to the air. She was waiting by the side of the road for the bus. Or she looked like it. Really she was just waiting for anyone. The road was empty and slick with water. Only rarely a car would drive by but sitting at the bus station no one stopped to see if she was okay. For the best. She didn’t want to know people if they wouldn’t stop to see why a child was waiting alone at a bus stop without shoes. Her father said she shouldn’t be so picky but she was picky by nature. Wasn’t that the point of her, to be picky?

She’d been sitting for a while but the bus hadn’t come. She wasn’t sure it’d ever come but that was okay. She wasn’t really here to ride a bus. She was here to wait.

The day grew long and she hadn’t seen a car in a long time. Then a sleek black car drove by, hardly making a single noise and being half obscured by the rain. It slowed as it got close to the bus stop before gliding to a halt. A man got out from the passenger seat and opened an umbrella before opening the back door. A woman in an immaculate masculine cut suit stepped out. She looked at the new woman, head cocked to the side.

The woman walked over to her, the man holding the umbrella for her but not under it himself. The woman sat down next to her elegantly, not even noticing if her perfectly pressed iron gray pants got a bit wet. “Hello,” the woman said with a kind and mysterious smile.

“Hi,” she said.

“What are you doing out here all by yourself?” the woman asked. The man with the umbrella took several steps back, now using the umbrella to cover himself from the rain, his back turned to them.

“I’m waiting for the bus,” she said.

“Are you now? Well, I’m sorry to tell you but the bus doesn’t run today.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No,” the woman shook her head. “What’s your name, little one?”

“Leila,” she said.

“That’s a nice name.”

“Who are you?”

“Wei Ning,” the woman said. Now Leila knew who this woman was. She was a powerful member of an organization known as the Guardians of the Light. Not quite police here in the Dynasty but pretty close. The Guardians were nice, all things considered. She could have been found by a lot worse agencies. Just because they were nice didn’t mean they probably hadn’t killed quite a few people to find her first. “How’d you like to come with me?”

Leila looked up at her. “I’d rather wait for the bus,” she said. If Wei Ning was going to treat her like a child she’d act like it.

Wei Ning smiled a little. Then her posture changed a little and she stopped speaking so gently. It was still nice but now she didn’t speak to Leila like she was helpless or didn’t know what was going on. Why she’d think Leila didn’t _know_ what she was was beyond her but adults got all sorts of stupid ideas in their heads if you let them. “You can come with me and be safe, or someone else will come along,” Wei Ning said. “Others are coming, including the military police. I don’t think you want to go with them?”

“Not really. But why should I go with you?”

Wei Ning pulled out her phone and Leila rose her brows suspiciously. “You’re late,” Wei Ning said and showed her a picture on the phone. Leila grabbed her arm and pulled it closer so she could get a better view. It was a picture of a girl from a child services organization. That in and of itself wasn’t interesting. It was her eyes. She had the same expression at Leila. Too old for her body, too knowing and intelligent. Her skin was pale and freckly and her hair an orangish copper. Wei Ning pulled the phone away. “That photo was taken last week by the CSFB in Africa,” Wei Ning said.

“That… that doesn’t mean anything.”

“It might not have. But your reaction says otherwise and I was willing to take a chance,” Wei Ning said and Leila scowled. Outdone by an adult. How utterly embarrassing. “As far as we know the Guardians are the only ones who have identified two of you. If you come with me we’ll see what we can do to get you to meet. Would you like that?” Leila nodded. “Excellent.” Wei Ning stood up and tucked her phone back into her jacket pocket. “Come with me then,” she offered her hand to Leila and she took it. Wei Ning moved to step out from the bus stop and the man with the umbrella was there to cover her and Leila as they walked to the car. Wei Ning helped Leila in and got in on the other side.

When the car door closed Wei Ning told the driver to take them back to ‘the tower’ whatever that was. The driver turned around and started driving the way they’d come. They’d only been driving a few minutes when they passed a bad car accident. Or what looked like a car accident. Leila looked away when she saw the bullet holes.


	26. From the Start, to the End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expect probably some quicker updates for this story. Maybe? Been on a real kick for it lately.

Altair found Chris, alone, in the gym. That was weird. He did a double check to make sure he hadn’t just overlooked Ehan but no, the big man wasn’t around. If someone could do depressed seated leg curls in the gym it was Chris without Ehan. “Why the long face?” Altair asked him. Chris looked up at him.

“Oh, hey Altair,” Chris said but didn’t stop doing leg curls. “Freaking Munahid came by and ‘borrowed’ Ehan. Had to talk about something before the next training stage. Which, by the way. When is this shit gonna be over? Not that I don’t love getting the moral shit beat out of me, but it’s getting old.”

“As long as it takes, till I feel you kids can handle things correctly if things get really bad. Take a break, come with me,” he added.

“Am I in trouble?”

“No. Just c’mon,” he motioned with his fingers and Chris stopped using the equipment. He wiped down the leather seat and followed Altair across the gym. Altair took them up a flight to the pool level where they’d spent the day not too long ago. Up here was also as close to a ‘track’ as you could get and there was a hundred meter dash area that ran parallel with the pool and a place to practice your long and high jump. With their enhancements Assassins broke every unenhanced record set by top athletes of the world. It was basically cheating of course and novices were discouraged from participating in sports or athletic activities on their pilgrimages. They were enhanced and combined with their training it was unfair to normal people who’d trained their entire lives for those events. Of course there were other organizations who had semi-enhanced people like Assassins and liked to use them to win competitions they had no place winning or even being in. It was unsportsmanly and the Assassins frowned on it considerably. But here they were free to be the insane jumpers, runners, and swimmers they’d been born as.

There was also a bleachers set up to people would watch the runners or swimmers if they wanted. Usually, like now, there were kids sitting in the bleachers, watching the adults. Some of the older novices might also participate if acknowledged. People liked showing their children the world they’d come to know when they grew up, and what their bodies could really do once they’d grown into them.

Altair sat in one of the higher bleachers and Chris sat next to him. Immediately Chris looked like one of the kids visiting their parents at the gym sitting next to Altair. It just reminded him that Chris was so young. All of Alpha was young. They were twenty-five at best except for Munahid and Ehan who were both twenty-nine and that was besides the fact that Ziio and Federico were barely even twenty-one. Altair forgot that, that his Alpha was young. He’d only had them a few years and he forgot that. Forgot they weren’t his old brothers and sisters and that they didn’t know things as well as they should, weren’t as skilled and would still need time to really live up to their rank. Utah had reminded him that. And so the training.

Chris fidgeted while Altair waited a bit to collect his thoughts. “So what happened last time,” he started. “It can’t happen again.”

“I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I just used the live one on the wall.”

“I don’t mean that,” Altair said. “I mean Utah.” Chris’ brow furrowed. “What you did in the Grand Temple. Something like that is _unacceptable_.”

Chris hunched a little then tried, “I was just trying to save you. Munahid authorized-

“I know he did. But I expect you to know better. Munahid is still getting used to his authority since I made him my second in command. He’s still used to taking orders from Giovanni, and me. He was freaked out and made a poor choice when he told you to blow that place up. Do you know what that did?”

“Uh-

“Utah attacked Colorado shortly after we left. Once it got itself in order and figured out who was dead and had finished grieving the loss of some holy men, some very high standing holy men, and high power politicians, they attacked Colorado.” The entire time Altair’s voice was normal and conversational. He wasn’t here to yell at Chris and knew the kid didn’t respond to yelling either. Heather had yelled at Chris enough since he’d come back from his pilgrimage for her and Altair both. “If Munahid told you to kick a hornet’s nest would you do it?” Chris shook his head. “Then why did you think it was okay to _blow up_ the Grand Temple?” Chris looked away.

“I’m not here to lecture you on your past failures. They’re as much mine as yours because I didn’t train Munahid well enough. He was scared because it was Utah and because he thought he was going to lose three of us, he made a bad call. I’ve already chewed him out about it. That’s why we’re doing this training. To see where we’re weak. Where we can improve. Understand?” Chris nodded. “Understand?” Altair asked again, harder this time.

“Yes, sir,” Chris said.

“Good. Now, what happened in the sim is also unacceptable. I know you didn’t aim to hurt anyone but the fact is you brought live explosives into a simulation. What were you thinking?” Chris looked at his lap. “I asked you a question, Christopher.”

‘“I panicked,” Chris admitted. “I saw they had Lisa and I just freaked. I didn’t even think really. I just saw her and knew I needed to get her down from there. So I used one of my grenades to blow a hole in the wall to make sure everyone knew to get out of my way.”

“You realize you made a mistake, right?”

“I guess-

“You blew a _hole_ in a sim. The Red Queen spammed my inbox with so many messages and pings about your stunt I couldn’t even delete them all without interfacing. Then she saw me interfacing and locked me in to yell at me some. Do you know how dangerous that is? Sim material is designed to break in certain ways and when it is retracted in ways it isn’t programmed in it malfunctions. You _broke_ the sim room. It’s out of commission for five weeks while tech fixes it. And that’s besides the point that you could have hurt someone from the blast or from falling debris or structure collapse. You could have _killed_ someone Chris.”

“I’m sorry,” Chris said.

“I don’t want to hear you’re sorry. I don’t care if you are or not,” Chris looked up at his mournfully. “I want to hear that you’ll watch your behavior. Control yourself. This is ridiculous behavior for someone like us to have. What if Lisa had actually been in danger and you freaked out, used your grenade and it hit a building support? You could bring a building down with you in it.” Chris was still just looking down. “From now on you’re not allowed to have live explosives on your person in the fortress.” Chris looked up. “Starting now. I sent a member of Charlie, not Heather or her second, to your room and rid it of all pyrotechnics. From now on you will only use sim explosives or when we’re in the field until I think you can handle them since you obviously can’t. If I find you in possession of them there will be consequences.

“Now, give me your grenades,” he held his hand out. Altair knew Chris had two on him. Always did.

Chris started at Altair. “I trusted you, Altair.”

“I trusted you too. But trust is earned Chris. This is two incidents in a row where you acted out of line and destroyed something against code,” Altair said. Chris didn’t move. “Hand over your grenades.”

Chris hesitated and then reached into his bag and pulled out three of them. “I’m sorry,” Chris said again.

“I know, kid,” Altair said as Chris handed him the smaller than palm sized ovals with circle pull pins grenades. “Trust me, I don’t wanna do this. I know you feel safe with them. But I can’t have you with them in our home when you can’t control yourself.”

“Is this like… you’ll take my number if I fuck up?”

Altair’s face softened a little. “No. I don’t think it’ll have to be that drastic. If you continuously are insubordinate to my orders on this, yes, consequences will progress into losing your rank. I have faith in you. I know you don’t need them around. You just think you do.” Altair put the grenades in his pocket. “Find something else that makes you feel safe instead.”

“Like what?” Chris asked as Altair got up. His job here was done. He’d had that talk with Chris that they’d needed to have and he could tell Heather to stop fucking pinging him about demoting Chris.

“Your sister. Or Kanwai maybe?” Chris just blinked at him, not understanding how Altair knew he and Kanwai were a thing. “See you at the next training session,” Altair waved with his fingers and walked down the bleachers.

He left the gym after that and called a fortress-wide elevator. He had to wait for it despite being one of the small number allowed to use to use them. Without proper clearance you had to go area by area. Was to keep elevator traffic congestion down as much as it was to hinder any invaders they might have. If all the stairwell doors were locked you had to take the elevators and people without authorization could only go sector by sector, slowing their progress before the inhabitants of the fortress showed up to destroy them. Had worked pretty well for the European fortress for a while before the people invading them had decided they were okay with collateral damage and had dropped a warhead on them. It’d destroyed half of the underground fortress leaving those still alive to flee for their lives, their home destroyed beyond saving.

Finally the elevator came and Altair took it up to nearly the very top of the fortress that was underground. Floor seventy-five was part of the three level armory and where they kept grenades, rockets, and other things that exploded. Charlie did a lot of their training up here under the watchful eyes of the armory tech who were around to step in on the off chance that something went horribly wrong.

Heather was, predictably, there, waiting for him. She looked so fucking smug and it did nothing for her. “You put down your rabid dog yet?” she asked him as he went up to the check-in desk.

“I’m just going to quote Faiz and say that gloating is beneath a lady of your standing,” Altair said blandly and signed in. He didn’t need access to the armory but even just visitors needed to check in. Failure to do so got you looked into. He dropped the grenades off. “Simmons here?” he asked the tech at the desk who was fiddling with some electronic gizmo. They looked up, nodded, and pulled up a screen, sending out a ping before ignoring Altair again.

Altair turned back to Heather. “Your men find anything in his quarters?”

“Twenty-five pounds of plastic,” Heather said, horrified. “And various detonators. Also found some gunpowder and a few bullets. We checked everything and then had a sniffer dog triple check that we hadn’t missed anything.”

“Did you?”

“No, but we were being careful.”

“Good. Glad to see you can do your job without being petty… right?” he asked her.

“I’m a professional,” she scoffed.

“So then I don’t need to worry about what I’ll find when I go check on it later will I?”

“No,” Heather said.

“Okay, good.”

Simmons showed up then. He was an older guy with a bald spot and soft at the edges. “Altair, what can I do for you?”

“I need to restrict access to a Third Class,” Altair said.

Simmons’ brows rose. “You could have done that with Clyde here,” he motioned to the man at the desk.

“I could have,” Altair said, “But I didn’t.”

Simmons brow furrowed seriously. “Alright. Who is being restricted then?”

“Christopher Douglas, Third Class, code name, Alpha-Three. He is under no circumstances to be given any more explosives or armaments until further notice if ever.”

“Christopher? That nice boy? What did he do to get such a ban?”

“He destroyed a sim room with live detons,” Heather jeered.

“Heather, be quiet,” Altair growled at her. “He got a little excited and used a live grenade instead of a sim one during an exercise. He’s on probation until I decide otherwise.”

Simmons frowned, “That is very serious. Very well. Clyde,” he snapped and Clyde stopped fiddling with whatever he was fiddling with and sat up straight. “Bring up access for me,” and he leaned over to the desk. The screen popped up again and Simmons worked through a few screens. “Alright, Altair. He’s blacklisted. His thumbprint doesn’t even allow him access to the armory now.”

“Good,” Heather said.

“Heather, _one_ more word and we’ll be talking to Mario,” Altair glared at her. “And it’ll be cause I kick your ass.”

“Try it pretty boy,” she sneered. He bared his teeth at her but restrained himself a bit more. He turned back to Simmons. “Thank you,” he said to the demo-man.

“Of course,” Simmons said. “Hate to see it though. Liked the work, was good at it, asked good questions. But if he’s being reckless with that fire power. Well,” Simmons shrugged helplessly. “Can’t say I blame you. Hope it works itself out.”

“Me too. Charlie also recently brought back some plastics and detonators to the armory. Make sure they’re handled with extra care.”

“More than usual?”

“Well… Chris is kinda weird. He liked to keep some in his room. I don’t want any accidents.”

Simmons frowned. “He alright?”

“I don’t think so. Gonna work on that next.”

“Good luck-

Altair spun and nailed Heather in the gut with his knee. She doubled over clutching her stomach. She retched dryly, coughing like she wanted to throw up both her lungs. “I _said_ shut up Heather,” Altair growled. “You broke him first and I picked him up. You don’t get to say _anything_ about my squad. I catch you throwing your shit around again and I won’t just kick your ass. I’ll actually take this up the chain.” Heather just wheezed, holding her stomach.

Altair turned back to Simmons. “Sorry about that,” he said.

“It’s alright. Not everyone knows how to ignore Heather’s mean mouth. You kinda get used to ignoring it.” Altair smiled a little at that. “We’ll be careful with the plastic Charlie brought in, thanks for the concern.” Altair nodded, shot one last look at Heather, and grabbed an elevator without waiting to see if she wanted to go down too.

—

To not even a bit of surprise Munahid found Ehan and Chris in the gym. They were lifting weights, Ehan laid out on the bench while Chris spotted for him. Of all of Alpha Ehan and Chris were the most muscular. Munahid stood off a bit to watch for a few seconds. It was impressive really. Ehan had no business needing to be as strong as he was since he was their sniper. Probably was because of Utah. Ehan never wanted to be weak like that ever again. Chris was still Charlie to his core and carried around a lot of extra weight in explosives, plastic, and electronics to both detonate and disarm bombs and needed to both be able to keep up with Alpha and carry all that stuff. Alpha suits only took the burden so much. Charlie suits were better at handling the weight than Alpha ones so he needed to pick up the slack his suit couldn’t handle.

Chris noticed him and looked down at Ehan and over at Munahid. Ehan still finished his rep before Chris helped him ease the bar into the cradle. Ehan sat up, sweating up a storm even as he tried to use the hem of his shirt to mop part of his face. “Hey,” Ehan said.

“What’s up, Munahid?” Chris asked, leaning on the bar purposefully casual so everyone could see how big his arms were. There were plenty of girls and boys around who were looking too. How did Chris actually survive with a libido the size of Texas?

“I need to talk to Ehan. So sorry, stealing him,” Munahid said.

Chris groaned. “Seriously? He’s the only one I can get to come to the gym with me anymore.”

“Cause you weird everyone else out,” Ehan muttered. Munahid laughed and Chris was incredibly offended. “Now?” he asked Munahid.

“Yeah. I figure before we have to do more training we should talk.”

Chris gave them a look. “Talk before training? About what?”

“Nothing you need to worry about, Chris.”

“Is Ehan getting promoted? Because if he is I call bullshit,” Chris complained.

“He’s not. And if he was you should be happy for him. He’s older than you,” Munahid scolded him. “And been through way more hell than you.”

“I guess,” Chris grumbled, folding his arms. Munahid knew he was just being grumpy because Munahid was taking his workout buddy.

“Alright,” Ehan sighed and got off the bench. He picked up his bag and took out a towel. Before leaving he wiped the bench down and then his head and arms. “Tomorrow, Chris,” Ehan said.

“Yeah yeah,” Chris said. “Now who’s gonna spot for me?” he complained.

Munahid looked at the people who’d been eyeing Chris earlier. “I’m sure you’ll find someone,” Munahid assured him. Chris just scoffed as they left. “So I was-

“Wanna clean up,” Ehan said before he could finish.

“Alright,” Munahid said. That sounded fair.

They had to take two elevators to get to Ehan’s place on floor forty-six.One to take them from the general training halls down to floor fifty-five on an area elevator and then they could take a local elevator down from there. They didn’t talk the way down which Munahid knew Ehan liked, especially since all the elevators had other people in it going down from the gym, the sim rooms, or the hospital. They got off at the right floor and Ehan let Munahid go first. Weird that Ehan was letting Munahid show him to his _own_ home.

Ehan unlocked the door and they walked in. Ehan’s quarters was a single large room made up of two different sized rectangles. He had everything crowded along the walls so that he had as much floor space as humanly possible to do what he liked to do, which was work out and exercise or do yoga by himself because Ehan liked to do everything by himself. Except when he went to the gym with Chris of course.

Munahid fell onto one of the padded chairs as Ehan disappeared into the bathroom to clean up. As he waited he looked around. Ehan liked collecting butterflies and had quite a display of dead and mounted ones on his wall. He also had moths. Munahid smiled remembering Ehan trying to raise them in his room shortly after they’d returned from their pilgrimage. They’d done just fine but he hadn’t been able to enjoy them since they’d both been training for their placements in the fortress which could take months to an entire year. All his butterflies had died before he’d had a chance to enjoy them. After that he’d just ordered already dead and mounted ones from the web to enjoy instead. Good to see he was still enjoying his butterflies, he’d started that almost eight years ago now.

Ehan didn’t take long and he came out of the shower in just a towel and went to get his clothes he’d forgotten to grab from his wardrobe quickly before ducking back into the bathroom. That didn’t stop Munahid from glimpsing the scars on his chest. At least Ehan still trusted him enough to let Munahid even have a chance to glimpse the holy text carved into his chest. Munahid rubbed his own chest at the thought. Thankfully his parents both had strong middle eastern genes despite being a generation removed from the fortress and he was hairy enough that it hid the scars. Ehan not so lucky with an American mother.

Munahid just waited for Ehan to come back out. When he did he walked right over to where Munahid was and pulled a chair around so they could sit opposite each other. Ehan said nothing, and just sat there, leaned forward and tense. Munahid leaned forward a bit as well. “So,” he started. Ehan just sat there. “What’s going on?” Ehan stayed silent. “Cmon, E. Talk to me. I know you fucking talk. You talked a whole lot _before_ Utah.” Ehan gave him a look, “Well more than you do now. Cmon, gimme something here,” Munahid said, motioning at Ehan aggressively. “You’ve been all weird since we got back from our last mission. What is going on?”

Ehan didn’t say anything and Munahid leaned back in the chair. He saw Ehan was going over what he wanted to say carefully in his head. Munahid could wait. Seconds ticked by into minutes but Ehan still didn’t say anything. Munahid did his best not to get annoyed with him. Ehan was his best friend. Shit really his only friend. They were both all alone honestly. Munahid considered Altair his friend and all of Alpha is family but they were work friends, work family. When they’d come back from their abnormally long pilgrimage they hadn’t spoken to any of their year mates. Even after their physical and mental recovery you didn’t just get better from the trauma they went through. Same thing with Diyari. He’d get better but he’d never be as he was. Both of Munahid’s parents were dead and he had no siblings.

But Munahid had Ehan and Ehan had him.

Munahid waited a bit longer before saying, “You gotta say something. You said not in the sim. So here we are.”

Ehan didn’t say anything for a few more seconds. “That was messed up, what Rauf did, you know?”

“I mean what do you give fake resonance to to someone who isn’t close to anyone who isn’t part of the sim?” Munahid said.

“You resonate with anyone?” Ehan asked.

Munahid blinked. Ehan had never asked him that. They never discussed it and it was rude to talk about it anyway. Your resonance was your own business. “Little, here and there. Nothing worth talking about. Why? You disappointed it was me and not who you resonated with?” Ehan shook his head. “Don’t resonate either?” A nod. “Heh, well isn’t that just like us, huh?” He stopped talking because he saw Ehan wanting to say something.

He waited. Ehan didn’t say what he wanted to say. “E,” Munahid said gently and leaned forward with a slight smile. “Nothing you say is gonna make us less friends. You know that, right? You’re my best friend, from the start, to the end.”

Ehan swallowed and breathed out. Munahid waited. “I… uh-“ he rubbed his mouth and suddenly looked shy and unsure. Words he’d never in a million years to describe Ehan.

“Cmon,” Munahid coaxed. Ehan spoke into his hand and Munahid only caught the mumble. “What? Put your damn hand down, I can’t understand you.”

Ehan dropped his hand. “I thought I hated it. I hated everything about that training sim while it was happening. But, with a few days between it and now I know I didn’t hate it. I was just scared. Scared it changed things. Maybe it does. I don’t know. I just know… I liked resonating with you.”

Munahid needed to take a few seconds to first appreciate that Ehan had just talked more than he usually did in a single exchange and then he actually processed what Ehan had said. His brow furrowed moment then he rose an eyebrow at Ehan. “What now?” he asked as a way for some clarification. He thought he knew what Ehan was getting at but Ehan wasn’t always the best at saying what he meant.

Ehan took a deep breath to steady himself. Maybe Munahid hadn’t reacted as Ehan expected, which was in a negative way, because he didn’t seem as tense as before. “You’re my best friend,” Ehan said. “Always have been. I don’t want that to change.”

“It hasn’t,” Munahid said. “You’ve just been in a mood lately and I don’t understand why.”

“I don’t actually want to be your friend, Muna,” Ehan said and before Munahid could even feel hurt Ehan continued. “I want more than that.”

Munahid sat back in the chair, taking it in. He blinked a bunch as he worked through what Ehan had told him. “Oh,” he said and had no idea what to do with that. He scoffed in a laugh, “That certainly explains why you didn’t like Maelin at all,” he joked. Ehan said nothing. He just sat there. Waiting. Munahid mulled it over for himself a bit. “Does this change anything?” Ehan just shrugged. “You were doing so good before. Not talking now?” Another shrug. They sat in silence and if it hadn’t been so familiar it would have been awkward. You just got used to silence around Ehan. It let Munahid think and Ehan wasn’t about to say anything now.

Eventually Munahid just ran his hand through his hair. “I dunno,” he said. “I just, I dunno,” he shrugged at Ehan. “Do you feel better now, telling me?” He laughed a little when Ehan shook his head. “Well, you’re still my friend. And is this a gay thing or a me thing?” Ehan didn’t really show an interest in people like that. Before Utah he’d fooled around with kids their own age and had been outgoing enough to convince girls they hadn’t strictly grown up with to fuck him. Munahid knew that he didn’t do that now, too self-conscious about the scars but it was worth asking.Ehan just shrugged. “You’re so helpful you know?” Ehan just gave him a sarcastic look. “Fuck off, really.” Ehan smirked a little. Munahid got up with a sigh. “So, I dunno,” he shrugged widely at Ehan.

“I’m glad you told me though. Really, I am. I like to know what you’re actually thinking and not just making me guess at this shit. Talk to me more.”

“I’ll try,” Ehan said in a quiet voice. And Munahid’s chest ached a little that Ehan would even think he needed to say, “I don’t want to lose you.”

“E, you won’t,” Munahid assured him. “You’re still my best friend. And we’re both in Alpha. We can’t be too weird, the kids’ll talk,” and that made Ehan crack a little smile.

“Like they need more to gossip about.”

“Exactly. So, let’s just play it by ear.”

“I always do that.”

“Yeah,” Munahid sighed a little. “I dunno what to tell you, E. I wish I did. That I could tell you anything to that. But I’m actually an idiot in case you didn’t know?”

“I did,” Ehan said flatly. “You liked a temporary agent who had a partner. That’s pretty stupid.”

“It is,” Munahid said and flushed a bit at that. He really thought everyone had forgotten by now. He supposed Ehan wouldn’t. “I just wanna know. How long?” Ehan said nothing. “What? Cmon, tell me.” Still nothing. “Is it a length of time that will make me feel bad?” Ehan just have him a look. “Okay. I’m gonna leave now. Figure this out,” he ruffled his hair. “Or something. Fuck. I dunno.”

“I’ll see you at training,” Ehan said.

“Yeah. Right. Good,” Munahid said before making his escape.

He stopped right outside the door and leaned against it with a sigh, looking at the ceiling. “Good one,” he told himself. What was he supposed to do with this?! He hadn’t known what he expected when he’d confronted Ehan but it sure as shit hadn’t been an actual confession. With a groan he pushed off the door and headed for home. He really wished he had someone to talk to about this but the only person that came to mind for talking about something as deep and serious as this was Ehan. He walked down the hall to his room and went in. He had a lot to think about.

Munahid stayed in his room for a few hours before his wall screen started throbbing with a white light as a way of an alarm. He had an appointment and was loathe to miss it even though he really didn’t want to get out of bed. He didn’t care he was acting like a shitty teenager who was coming into their EVs and resonance (or lack of) at the same time and hid in their room to avoid overstimulation, he really didn’t want to leave. But the appointment was more important. So with a groan Munahid pulled himself off his bed and out of his room.

He grabbed two elevators down to the nursery, signed in and went to the AWC room. To his surprise, he saw Altair there with one of his sons Munahid couldn't remember the name of. The little one who's other father was Rauf. He and the child were looking over a book and Altair had an empty notepad on his thigh, a pen stuck behind his ear. They seemed very serious about the book.

Munahid went over to father and son and Altair looked up at him. “Munahid, what are you doing here?”

“I'm visiting my son,” Munahid said awkwardly.

Altair blinked before remembering. “Oh right,” he said. “Well don't let me interrupt.”

“Are you going to be here for a bit?” Munahid asked.

“Little bit, why?”

“Could you stay? I… wanna ask you some stuff and I know we'll be uninterrupted here”

“Sure. Should I be worried?” Altair asked slowly.

“No. I just really need to talk to you.”

Altair sighed, “I guess. I was really hoping to have the rest of the day off from being an adult after I had to discipline Chris, but sure.”

“I appreciate it,” Munahid said.

“I mean what good am I if I’m not here for you all, hmm?” Altair smiled a little and Munahid really did appreciate Altair in that moment. “I’ll be here a while. I might leave to take Sef back, but I’ll be back.”

“Okay,” Munahid said before crossing the rest of the way to the doorway that led to the baby room. 

He knocked and a nurse came, smiled at him and showed him to where he could sit. Like always they handed Si’u to him and stood around a few moments to make sure everything was alright before fogging the glass and leaving them alone. Si’u had already grown a lot since Munahid had first held him only a few weeks ago. Before he’d been so small. A premature birth the nurses said. Very rare nowadays, even by women who decided to carry instead of using an AWC. It meant Si’u was small and underdeveloped though the nurses assured Munahid that his heart was normal and he had _quite_ a set of lungs on him. Munahid didn’t come down enough to know that. Si’u was always so quiet when Munahid was around, half awake and half asleep most of the time. Sometimes he’d wake up and look up at Munahid with his narrow black eyes and clench his little fist. Today he was sleeping and hadn’t even woken when the nurse had deposited him into Munahid’s arms. Every now and then his food twitched but other than that the infant slept soundly.

Unfortunately, because Si’u was premature he had to be kept separate from the other babies. Not to mention he could have all sorts of strange Utarian germs from his donor. So for both reasons he was kept in a warmed plastic shell of a box with holes to allow hands to enter. It kept Si’u warm because he was too small to do it himself and kept him separate from the other babies. 

Munahid still couldn’t believe himself he’d actually requested and been accepted as Si’u’s guardian. He was a madman and had _no_ idea what to do with kids. His own parents had ignored him for the most part. Just another pair of Assassins joined during a Season with only thought to how their genes would make a good Assassin. Munahid didn’t have parents like Altair and Rauf who after they’d been joined had hit it off. They’d come and seen Munahid a few times while he grew up but kept visits short. He honestly didn’t remember what they looked like unless he looked at a picture of them especially now that they were both dead. He knew one thing about Si’u though. He didn’t want to be like his parents for Si’u. So in that he was already doing way better than his and he’d turned out alright. So Si’u would be even better, right?

Before Munahid knew it his time was up. The nurse came back and said he was done. Other people wanted to come see their children too and only one person, or couple, was allowed in the baby room at once. So Munahid gave Si’u back to the nurse. Si’u still hadn’t woken and continued to sleep as the nurse put him into his plastic incubator. As the nurse showed him out they asked if Munahid wanted to make another appointment. There was an opening in eight days if he was interested. He said yes and they marked it on their screen so Munahid would be pinged about it and he could add it to his schedule.

Altair was still out there with his son. Except now the little boy was using the pen Altair had had to draw on the empty pad, which was still on Altair’s thigh. Altair was looking over a different book. He glanced up when Munahid came out. “You look refreshed,” Altair teased him.

“Don’t be rude,” Munahid said. He sat next to Altair to see what he was looking at. It was a baby name book. It took Munahid an embarrassingly long time to remember Altair had been joined _again_ this season. He didn’t know he’d forgotten when for the entire week after it had happened Altair had done nothing but complain about it since the other donor of his new kid wasn’t Rauf and he was bitter. “Any luck?” he asked, nodding at the open book.

Altair sputtered his lips. “Not even a little. It’s impossible cause I haven’t seen Malik down here to ask him. Not that he’d probably even care what I called them.”

“You’ll figure it out. Make sure you run it by Rauf so you don’t name them something lame.”

“Why does everyone assume I’ll pick a bad name? I named Darim,” Altair was honestly a bit insulted by the entire thing, which was more than a little amusing. “Anyway, what did you want to talk about?” All of Munahid’s words left him in an instant. He couldn’t talk and just kinda stammered a second. As he did someone else came in and went up to the door for their appointment. “Muna? You okay?” Altair asked.

Munahid just blurted out what he was thinking, “Did you know?”

“Uh… know what?” Altair rose his brow at him.

“About Ehan?”

Altair squinted at him. “Munahid, just start at the beginning. I have no idea what you’re talking about if you just jump into the middle.”

“Did you know Rauf was going to do that during the last exercise, with me and Ehan?”

Altair frowned. “No. He told me about it when he gave me the debrief. It wasn’t very nice since it was like a trick. I’ve since let him know that that was a _really_ stupid exercise for a bunch of young, reckless, twenty-somethings to be faced with.”

“Have you noticed Ehan’s been acting weird lately?” Munahid asked.

Altair gave him a look. “Munahid, I know you two are very close but to the rest of us Ehan is _always_ weird. He’s even weird to me and I can read him almost as well as you.”

“I mean _more_ weird?”

“No, not really. Maybe a bit more sulky but that isn’t anything terribly significant. Why? Something happen?”

“You could say,” Munahid said slowly.

“What happened?”

Munahid sighed. “If I tell you, please don’t tell _anyone_.”

“Of course not,” Altair said with earnest.

Munahid hesitated anyway despite knowing Altair wouldn’t tell. “So apparently Ehan is interested in me? And why do you not look surprised at _all_? Did you know?” he demanded.

“I guessed,” Altair said with infuriating flippantness.

“What? How?”

“Because I saw him,” Altair said easily. “Is this the problem you were talking about?”

“Well… yes?” Munahid had no idea now.

“What’s the problem?”

“I’m straight?”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure?” Munahid just felt confused really. “I think? I don’t know.” He slumped in the chair and put his hands over his face.

“Daddy, look,” the little boy drew Altair’s attention away from Munahid for a few seconds to show him what he’d been drawing on the pad. “It’s a fishy.”

“That’s a nice fishy, little man,” Altair said. He took the pad off his thigh and put it on the chair next to him. “Why don’t you draw over here so I can talk to Muna.”

“Okay,” and the boy happily stood and bounced a little in front of the chair to keep drawing.

“Munahid, hey, stop acting like the world just ended,” Altair chided him.

Munahid glared at him from between his fingers. “My best friend just told me he’s in love with me, it’s basically the end of the world.”

Altair laughed. “Why?”

Munahid lowered his hands a bit. “I’m not like that.”

“You sure?”

“I think so?” Munahid was still unsure about it. “I was hoping for some advice here you know, not just question my sexuality.”

“Well maybe you should,” Altair said in a surprisingly reassuring voice. “And did he say love specifically or are you making mountains out of molehills like I _know_ you do?”

“Rauf gave us fake resonance for each other. Ehan said he wished we have _real_ resonance. So I don’t think I am,” Munahid said.

“Do you want to too?”

“I honestly didn’t even think about it after it was over. And is that what it really feels like?” he asked Altair.

Altair smiled a little. “Yeah, it really feels like that.”

“No wonder Diyari and Jari are so useless all the time,” Munahid huffed and Altair chuckled. “But I still don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I can look at him the same now that I know. He’s my best friend. I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Of course not. But you might have to.” Munahid frowned deeply. “Which is why I keep asking you if you’re sure you’re straight? Rauf thought he was straight before he hooked up with me.”

“Yeah but you’re you,” Munahid said, squinting at Altair.

“What’s that mean?”

“Don’t let it get to your head but you’re _really_ attractive. That happens to people like you.”

“Flattery gets you nowhere,” Altair chided him. “But that doesn’t mean anything. It isn’t like I _made_ Rauf bisexual. I just made him realize he _is_ bisexual. Which is common in the fortress by the way,” he reminded Munahid. And _oh_ Munahid knew about the rampant bisexuality in the fortress, especially in the upper novice levels. Everyone in charge liked to pretend that keeping boys and girls separate worked but it only worked half the time. Novices always found ways around to bang those of the opposite sex resonance or not and if the opposite sex wasn’t available same sex usually worked just fine too. Half of Munahid’s year mates were bisexuals. The rest had been a mix of straight, gay, and every flavor in between.

“I have never, even once, been interested in dick except when I get to _be_ a dick,” Munahid said and Altair laughed. Munahid smiled at that one. It had been good.

“Daddy, Moony said a bad word,” the boy pointed accusingly at Munahid.

“Yes, he did, Sef,” Altair agreed.

“Nani says if you say bad words you have to sit in timeout.”

“Kid, I’m already in timeout,” Munahid sighed. “I came to your dad for advice, that’s pretty much as much in timeout as you can get.”

Sef frowned at his father. “Don’t worry Sef, he’ll have his timeout.” He looked back at Munahid, “Excuse me,” Munahid nodded and Altair got up, picking up his son and taking him out of the room. 

Munahid slumped in the chair and waited for Altair to come back from dropping Sef back off at the nursery. He folded his arms frowning. Like he hadn’t been questioning his sexuality since Ehan told him. That had been _all_ he’d been doing.

Altair came back and Munahid perked up a little. “Sorry,” Altair said and Munahid just shrugged. “What were we talking about again?”

“Ehan likes me and I’m not gay.”

“Oh right,” Altair nodded. “Though he said he just wished you resonated. And let me tell you, there are plenty of different types of resonance.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm. There’s what me and Rauf have for instance, which everyone knows about. But did you know Rauf is a weird and resonates with like a dozen people other than me?”

“What?” Munahid stared at Altair.

“Yeap. And that’s just the ones he kept track of. Apparently he has a very weird and high rate of resonance. Very annoying when you’re growing up and confused. And then I resonate with someone else and I can’t fucking _stand_ him. Like I can’t even be in the same room with him or we start fighting.”

“Wow. I didn’t know that,” Munahid said.

“And did you know twins resonate too? Not like how we think about it though. More like they resonate at slightly different frequencies than each other so they have very high resonance, but apparently there’s a dissonance to it. Sally told me about it once that she didn’t even know until Sarah found she resonated with Micheal. And there is of course a lot of lesser resonance that pulls people together. Like Giovanni and I had some-

“You’re fucking joking,” Munahid cried.

“Nope. But it’s nothing like what Rauf and Achilles induced in you. I don’t even feel it it’s so minor, but it allows you to be aware of the other in a way. It was more like a closeness of family, like how I feel with my boys. I _know_ when Darim’s done something I won’t like before I even talk to him. That’s a type of resonance too. The exercise we did was just everyone being forced to experience the loudest form, which can be kinda annoying honestly.”

“You would say that,” Munahid grumbled.

“It can be,” Altair insisted. “You can’t hide _anything_ from each other. You feel it. And trust me, it is super annoying to try to be sleeping and you’re hit by an unexpected feeling from your partner. And if one of you can’t sleep neither can the other if you’re in the same room. That’s why nights before missions I always sleep in my own quarters.

“Ehan said he wished you resonated, but really he has no idea what that even means,” Altair rolled his eyes a little. “And it isn’t like friends can’t resonate.”

“I don’t think he meant it like that,” Munahid said.

“Maybe not, but there isn’t much either of you can do about it. Personally, I’m surprised Ehan even told you his feelings. You know how he is,” Altair sighed.

“I… kinda forced him,” Munahid admitted.

“Really?”

“He was acting so weird. I had to know what was wrong.”

Altair was quiet a moment. “For reference, _what_ is Ehan being weird like for you?”

“Well he was talking more than usual and I didn’t have to initiate a conversation.”

“That is weird,” Altair agreed. “And I think you need to just think about what you want out of your relationship with Ehan, however, it will be.”

“I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

“Then think of a way not to.”

“I feel trapped, though! Anything except ‘yeah, we should hook up’ will hurt his feelings.”

“Ehan is a grown ass man who has been through horrible things, he will get over it,” Altair assured him. “And for that matter, you’re _also_ grown. Why can’t you just tell Ehan what you’re telling me?”

“Cause I don’t want to ruin our friendship.”

“Ehan did that already. Kinda. You can easily pick it up and fix it but the fact that you’re this worked up about it means what you had will come back. You need to make a decision about what you want to do. I can’t make it for you. Wish I could, but I can’t.” Altair was so rational about it and Munahid still felt lost.

“Say you were in my place. What would _you_ do?”

Altair thought about his answer. “I’d think long and hard about it and about what I’d be willing to attempt to keep my friend. In the end I’d try it out at the very least. But I’m also pan as fuck so there’s that. You shouldn’t make yourself love someone Muna,” he said. “But you can always try to. And I know. You’re straight,” he said before Munahid could say it. “But you might not be. Try it out. _Tell_ Ehan you’re trying it out and it might not work out. Like I said, he’s a grown ass man, he’ll get over it.”

“You sure he will?”

“It’s Ehan,” Altair said as a way of explanation.

Munahid closed his eyes a minute. Then he opened them and looked at Altair. “I don’t feel any more certain after this but I don’t feel totally lost now.”

“Well, at least I helped somewhat,” Altair chuckled.

“I was really hoping for some more concrete guidance. Like do this Munahid, it’s the best idea.”

“See, wouldn’t do that,” Altair said. “You need to come to the decision yourself. I know you like it when I tell you exactly how to do something but this isn’t Foxtrot anymore, Munahid. You’re second of Alpha, you gotta figure stuff out. Including stuff like this.”

Munahid breathed deeply through his nose and nodded. “Okay,” he said. His head was still swimming but he was swimming now and not drowning. “Okay. I uh, think I need to go do some more thinking.”

“Good. You do that,” Altair said and patted his back. “And don’t be afraid of your choice. Just make it calmly and rationally. No good plans were ever made on rash decisions and panic. I’m sure Ehan knows you’ll need a while to think about it. So take it.”

“I will,” Munahid nodded. “Thanks.”

“Of course, still don’t know why you decided to come to me about this. But you’re welcome.”

“You’re the only person I know who has any actual relationship experience who isn’t Diyari and Jari who are absolutely worthless,” Munahid said and Altair laughed again. He got to his feet. “I guess I’ll see you around. Next training day.” Altair nodded. Munahid frowned even as he left.

—

Not knowing why he was here Malik left the elevator. The nurse only glanced up at him when he signed in. He’d only come here once since he first met Rauf down here. He thought coming to visit an AWC was weird. Even when he’d been joined with Jessabelle they’d hardly ever come down here. What was the point of it? There wasn’t a baby in there for most of the season. As it was this year’s children were probably smaller than his hand still. There was nothing in those AWCs. They’d only visited late in the season when there was something to see and they’d clear the otherwise opaque glass so you could see your kid before it was born.

Shaun, as usual, had needled him about going down to his AWC and he’d finally felt weird enough about not going to go do it. Shaun and Rebecca had been down to the nursery _constantly_ when they’d been joined during the season. It had all Shaun had talked about for nine months and Malik had had to suffer through seven months of drama of the two of them trying to decide on a name and fighting over half of them.

Malik really hoped he didn’t have to endure that with Altair. Honestly, Altair was way more invested in this kid. Rebecca sent him scolding messages at least once a week telling him Altair was down in the nursery visiting their kid. Malik honestly didn’t care as much. He’d let Altair think of a name or something and Malik would either say yes or no but he didn’t care enough to look over it. He’d cared enough about Tazim because he had had feelings for Jessabelle and hadn’t minded being joined a decade ago. Now? Malik still got annoyed thinking he’d been forced to join with that idiot.

“Of course,” he muttered to himself when he opened the door to the AWC room. There was another couple in it, hunched over towards one another and ignoring everyone else. Altair was sitting by himself a distance from them, legs kicked out, leafing through a book of some sort. Malik ignored him and just walked down the line of AWCs to his.

Honestly, Malik felt stupid standing there. He wasn’t a man of the god, never had been. He was a tech guy, practical and rational. Whatever inside that AWC was barely alive and certainly not human. Certainly didn’t care to know Malik was standing there looking at the opaque white glass. Late in the season lights would show up along the bottom of the glass, illuminating the face to distinguish sex. Red for boys, yellow for girls, and orange for parents who wanted to be surprised and not know the sex. Malik stood there though, so he could tell Shaun he had to get him and Rebecca off his case about never visiting the nursery anymore.

He felt Altair before he heard or saw him. It started as a prickle at the nape of his neck and flared across his shoulders like a bad feeling from their resonance. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling but it made Malik feel an unpleasant emotion he never unpacked too thoroughly and just designated it ‘loathing’. Altair came to stand next to him in an easy posture. Malik narrowed his eyes and looked at him but said nothing. He’d let Altair say something first.

Or that was his intention. The feeling of being touched along his right side where Altair was standing on drove him kinda crazy. Finally he looked at Altair with a scowl. “What do you want?” he asked and tried to keep himself civil, which wasn’t easy when the last time they’d met Altair had literally thrown him _out a window_.

“Would you believe me if I told you to talk to you?” Altair said, calm and cool and looking very tired. Good. Malik hoped he was tired because Malik was tired too. Tired of him and they’d only been near each other less than a minute.

“That’s funny cause I have nothing to say to you. Unless you’re up for me yelling at you some more about that _stupid_ stunt you pulled the other day? Cause I could do that all day,” Malik growled.

“It was effective,” Altair said.

“It was stupid and had that not been a sim room you would have killed your hostage.”

“If it hadn’t been a sim room I would have had my parachute,” Altair said.

Malik just bristled. He just had an answer for everything! He could still remember when he’d tried out for Alpha after he’d come back from his pilgrimage. Altair had already been in Alpha three years and had the answers then too. Even when the answer sucked Altair had an answer for everything. What an infuriating sort of person. “What do you want?” he snapped out.

Altair gave him a mild look. “I’m sorry for throwing you out the window,” he said. Malik leaned back a bit.

“Did you just… apologize?” Malik asked. He didn’t remember Altair ever apologizing to him about anything. He squinted at Altair distrustfully. “What do you want? You wouldn’t be nice if you didn’t want something.”

“I don’t want anything. Rauf said I needed to make nice before the end of the season or I’d regret it having to try and raise a kid with someone who hates me. So I'm trying here. Maybe you could try the same?”

Malik gave him a skeptical look. “Yeah, right,” he said sarcastically.

“I’m serious, Malik. We’ve known each other our entire lives.” Not an understatement. They were the same age so they literally had grown up together, shared the same room growing up, and seen each other every day of their lives until they went on their pilgrimage. “We didn’t always hate each other.”

“By your memory,” Malik scoffed.

“It only happened cause we resonate. I can’t help it, neither can you. I remember being twelve and being as good of friends with you as the rest of our year mates. Don’t act like that didn’t happen.”

“Is there a point to this? Cause it isn’t _just_ cause we resonate. You’re an asshole.”

Altair rolled his eyes. “So are you. I’m still trying to be the bigger man to make sure at the end of the season we aren’t fighting like Assassins and Templars in front of our kid.”

“And if I don’t want to?”

“Then you’re more petty than I thought.” That struck a cord. Malik didn’t like to think himself petty but he knew he was being petty here. He just hated giving an inch to Altair. He hated letting Altair get to him and convince him he should be doing what he was doing another way. Most resistance, least resistance, didn’t matter. Malik hated doing what Altair said as much as Altair loved telling people what to do. He was Alpha-One for goodness sake! That was all he did all day was tell people what to do and they obeyed with unflinching loyalty. He even had Rauf doing whatever he said and that just grated on him _so_ hard. But Malik could see Altair wasn’t just trying to get his way here. This was an actual, legitimate, concern that they were going to bicker and fight in front of their kid. Potentially that could spill over into arguing in front of Tazim. Malik didn’t want Tazim to see that part of him. Tazim knew he could have a temper, hell Tazim was almost as bad as him, but Malik did everything in his power to make sure Tazim never saw it.

Malik sighed and folded his arms. Altair said nothing. He just waited. Bastard knew Malik was giving in. He could probably feel it. Malik sure as hell could feel Altair’s curiosity on how Malik would respond. He knew Altair knew he’d just poked Malik in a way that could make him angry. The fact that it was also true didn’t help.

Finally, he looked at Altair and unfolded his arms. “Truce, I guess,” he said and offered Altair his hand.

Altair’s eyes widened. Had he actually expected Malik to deny him and say fuck off? Thinking that, that sounded exactly what Malik would usually do. “Truce,” Altair shook his hand.

Malik squeezed his hand, “So let Rauf hang out with us again.”

Altair squeezed back. “I told you. I haven’t told he can’t. He just didn’t want to start shit. If you wanna hang out then do something. I’m not threatened by you hanging out with Rauf.”

Malik yanked his hand out of Altair’s. “Good.”

“Good.”

“Fine. Bye,” and Malik stormed off angry. Fucking prick. Malik hated him. He hated him he hated him he hated him. He was very glad when the feeling of resonance faded and Malik was back to feeling like just himself again. No more ghost sensation or feeling like he could feel Altair’s warm breath everywhere. Malik rolled his shoulders as he signed out. He was waiting for the elevator when Altair came out of the AWC room and signed out as well.

Malik stubbornly didn’t look at him and the elevator came. He got in and pressed the button before looking back. Altair was standing right there on the other side of the threshold but didn’t stop the doors when they closed. The elevator went up and Malik made a point to remind himself to tell Shaun he wasn’t going down to the nursery again and to send Rauf a message about meeting for lunch one day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like the story consider leaving a comment. I really appreciate it.


	27. It is So

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter just makes The Sad Thing so much worse when it eventually happens

After hours Jari had passed out in the hallway in a chair. Diyari had been in surgery all day and it was totally normal. Jari just didn’t want to leave him. A nurse found him and woke him. “Jari, why don’t you head back to your room?” they said. “Even when he comes out of surgery he’ll be out for hours yet, sleeping off the sedative.” Jari just shook his head stubbornly. “Should I tell your ranking officer about this?” Jari shook his head again.

“I don’t want him to be alone,” Jari said.

“He won’t be. Once he comes out his engineer will be with him for the first forty-eight hours to troubleshoot any issues with the new limbs. Even if you aren’t here they will be. I can contact your officer if you want to be stubborn.”

“He’ll just tell you to let me make my own stupid choices. If I wanna sleep out here and be miserable for our next training session because I didn’t sleep well that’s my own choice and mistake. Contact him if you want but I guarantee you he’ll say something like that,” Jari said. He was too tired to have much of a filter or realize he was being too blunt for good form. “If you wanna help then gimme a pillow or something,” he yawned.

The nurse huffed and left him. Jari smiled when they returned with a pillow and blanket and Jari leaned down on the arm of the chair, pillow under his head and fell asleep again. When he slept he dreamed of the room he slept outside of. It was less of a dream and more of his sleeping mind remotely accessing his EV that allowed him to build a sound picture of the room. He was used to dreaming in echoes and your EVs being active while you slept was nothing new for Assassins. Normal people activated parts of their brains they never usually did while they slept so it only made sense that Assassins would activate their EVs in their sleep too.

Once Jari had dreamed in pictures that made no sense, like anyone else. His dreams were surreal and made sense in the moment. But they were images built by sight. As he’d gone through puberty and his EVs had developed and he’d unlocked echolocation early he’d stopped dreaming in sight based images. Instead, his dreams became images of wavering sound he had difficulty explaining to people because people just didn’t think like that, or dream like that. Even without dreams, Jari was never blind in his sleep. His echolocation just switched on and he built a sound map of the world around him.

It was harder to build a sound map of the room across the hall but behind his closed eyes as he slept he got flashes of movement. A bed raised up and someone laid across it. A disembodied hand. Fingers with hard edges instead of soft. A sleek scalpel. The chug of liquid moving through a tube. Round buttons of a machine that beeped at regular intervals. The sharp tings of metal instruments being put into little metal buckets were like flashes, drowning out the rest of the noise. Low talking he couldn’t make out because words never made sense in dreams but existed regardless. The shuffling of feet and sound of wheels on the tile.

Then. Silence.

Jari’s breathing became the only source of noise around as the rest of the sounded faded away and the sound map fell away, fading into darkness. Jari’s eyes opened. He couldn’t sleep in pure darkness. He needed sound, shape, to his sleep. He looked around sleepily and saw no one. He went to the room and knocked. No answer. He opened the door and it was empty. “It’s over,” he told himself and went back out. He grabbed his pillow and blanket and found the room where Diyari had been staying since they’d returned from Colorado. The surgeon was in there and so was the cybernetic engineer who’d made Diyari’s arm and foot. They both looked over when Jari entered.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to leave you out there. We thought it best to let you sleep,” the doctor said.

“It’s fine,” Jari said, dragging himself into the room. The time on the wall read two in the morning. Fantastic. “Everything okay?”

“It was an uneventful procedure,” the surgeon said.

“That’s good,” Jari said and he nodded. “And you?”

“I’ll be hanging around,” Cipriano said. “Tomorrow,” he added with a yawn. “We need some sleep after that,” he motioned to himself and the surgeon. “You too,” he pointed at Jari.

“It’s fine,” Jari said again and dragged a chair up to Diyari’s bed. “I’ll just sleep here.”

“You sure?” Cipriano asked.

“I’m sure,” Jari said. “So I can be here when he wakes up. It attached?” he added.

“No. Not yet. Initial attachment is usually a jolt so we like to do it when the patient is awake,” Cipriano said. “His implant went perfectly, though.”

“Good.”

“Well, I’ll be off then,” the surgeon said. Cipriano nodded to that and the two saw themselves out. Jari took Diyari’s hand and put his pillow down, pulling the blanket up as he laid his head down and fell back asleep. This time his sound map just showed Diyari’s shimmering form.

—

There was a rule at home. Don’t bring work to it. Which was a stupid request since Altair was as much in love with his job as he was Rauf. He was sitting on the bed, legs stretched out in front of him, relaxing, and going over the final report from the first stage of the reconditioning Altair had asked Rauf and Achilles to put his squad through. Apparently, Rauf had sent the information to support for the techs to get their hands on it to organize it better and make information easier to digest. Altair appreciated it since he hated reading and reading reports was torture. That and tech reports always used near full tech EVs so to view the full report you had to actually be able to see through all the layers.

He wasn’t supposed to be doing work in the bedroom. Rauf would get annoyed but Rauf also wasn’t around so Altair was risking it. Rauf was having dinner with a friend and no Altair really wasn’t allowed to come along. Altair had a sneaking suspicion that the dinner friend had something to do with Malik. Which was good because Altair didn’t want to be anywhere near Malik. He’d ‘made friends’ or whatever so hopefully they could act like adults now. Especially in the coming years when their kid would be young and impressionable. Altair knew how bad it was when kids had two parents that didn’t get along. It was worse than vacant parents. Darim’s mother was distant and she and Altair only got along professionally and she had wanted and done nothing with Darim growing up. Altair knew it affected Darim a lot that his mother didn’t ever interact with him or reach out to him when Altair was so present. At least if kids had two distant parents it was chalked up as just a mandated joining and wasn’t as damaging. Altair didn’t want that for his new kid.

So if he had to play nice with Malik, he would cause he knew he had to. Didn’t mean he liked it. But he’d do it.

The report was thorough and boring. Altair also knew most of the information on it. It had all his kids organized by number, except Munahid who was first, and then ten or more pages of information about them. There was an insane amount of information crammed into each page and half of the pages were holographic you could only view with the vision enhancing EV. The most recent information was in the front but the dossiers went all the way back to first level. Altair read the recent information and just skimmed the older stuff since the recent information was about what each person was weak in and steps they would take in the next phase of the retraining to fix it. The next phase would be mostly on Altair’s shoulders with Rauf or Achilles popping in only now and then. The Season was midway through at this point and roll over was coming up when everyone got one year older, novices moved up one level, and, of course, children were born. As the ninth and tenth level instructors Achilles and Rauf needed to dedicate more time to their students so they’d be prepared to move into the tenth level, or in Achilles’ case, he’d prepare them to start their pilgrimages.

He could handle the training once he knew what he had to do. It was figuring it out what he needed to work on that was difficult. Which was why he’d brought in Rauf and Achilles. But now he’d take over the retraining. With plenty of complaining to Rauf along the way, Altair was sure.

Altair looked up when the door opened and he flicked the report off the tablet screen when Rauf came in. He was smiling and his nose was a bit red. Altair checked the time. It was just past ten. “Have a nice dinner?” Altair called as Rauf closed the door.

“Hmm? Oh! Yes, yes I did,” Rauf said brightly and shambled over to the bed.

“Have fun?”

“Yeap,” Rauf said proudly.

Altair chuckled, “I can tell,” Altair said as Rauf came up to the side of the bed. “You drank a lot, huh?”

“Yeap,” Rauf giggled. “It’s nice eating with friends— and no kids!”

Altair laughed, “That’s for sure. You wanna shower before bed or just gonna pass out?”

“I… Hmmm,” Rauf thought about that for a surprisingly long time. “I don’t know. What should I do?”

“I think you should take a shower. Or brush your teeth at least,” Altair said, still amused.

“Okay. I love you. I’ll do that,” and Rauf walked off, swaying a little. Altair followed after him to make sure he didn’t fall. Rauf could hold his alcohol just fine but his coordination was shit when he was drunk.

Rauf made it into the bathroom before becoming confused why he was there and looking around. “Why did I come in here again?”

“To get ready for bed,” Altair said and Rauf jumped.

“You followed me,” Rauf accused, but was smiling happily.

“I did,” Altair said, a smile tugging at his lips. “To make sure you made it here in one piece.”

“That’s sweet,” Rauf said. “You’re sweet,” Rauf patted Altair’s cheek. “I love you.”

Altair just smiled down at Rauf fondly. “I love you too. And you’re silly when you’re drunk. Why don’t you brush your teeth and come to bed, hmm?” He saw a shower would be pretty impossible now. When Rauf was silly he was _really_ drunk and he didn’t want Rauf to tip over. It had happened before, which was why Rauf didn’t drink very often.

“Take a shower,” Rauf said, remembering what Altair had said earlier.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. You might slip.”

“Then take it with me,” Rauf said.

“Oh do _not_ tempt me,” Altair was only a little sarcastic.

“So? I wanna shower,” and before Altair could stop him Rauf had taken all his clothes off in only the magical speed drunk people could do, turned on the water and gotten under it. Altair just watched him and wasn’t sure if he wanted to join in or just make sure he didn’t slip.

“Oh bother,” Altair muttered when Rauf touched the wall to steady himself and put one foot into the shower fully clothed. He reached his arm around Rauf’s waist just as Rauf started to lean the other way. “ _Habibi_ , you’re drunk and going to fall,” Altair said as water drenched his arm, running down the inside of his shirt and splashed him with a bit of water on the face.

“I wasn’t,” Rauf said stubbornly.

“Yes, you were,” Altair said gently. “Now cmon.” He knew had he been any less drunk Rauf would have protested when Altair picked him up out of the shower. It got him all wet in the process.

“Hey! I don’t like this,” Rauf whined even as Altair set him back down on his feet. “Better,” he nodded and looked down at the floor to make sure he was standing on his own.

Altair turned off the water. “Now you’re all clean from your shower,” Altair handed him a towel which Rauf put on. Rauf just smiled at him, his eyes closing. He was so proud of himself. Altair couldn’t help but chuckle to himself when Rauf went to brush his teeth. He did it briefly, rinsed his mouth, and left, seemingly forgetting Altair was in there. Altair followed after him with a shake of his head as Rauf marched over to the dresser to pull on pajamas.

Altair’s day clothes were completely soaked from the shower so he made to change as well. As he did Rauf stared at him with glassy eyes. “You okay, Rauf? Need to throw up?”

“I don’t throw up when I drink. You think I’m one of your Alpha kids?” Rauf was actually offended by that and Altair laughed. Rauf touched his chest. Altair still hadn’t put a shirt on yet and Rauf’s hand was a bit wet and clammy from the shower. “I can’t believe you,” he said.

“What?” Altair gave him a look.

“That you’re mine. I can’t believe you. You’re too pretty.” Altair laughed again.

“You’re acting all silly. Of course, I’m yours,” Altair said and leaned down to drop a light kiss on his lips. Rauf put his arms around Altair’s neck and kissed him some more before just hugging him. Altair stood there a bit before feeling Rauf tip a bit and the sensation of their resonance changed ‘key’ so to speak. The excited static turned into a gentler sensation like sand falling across your skin. It was soothing, and nice and made Altair feel sort of sleepy. He checked on him and Rauf had passed out right there, standing up, arms around Altair’s neck. “Oh Rauf,” he sighed, picked Rauf up and brought him to the bed.

Rauf woke up enough to crawl under the covers before he was just out. Altair pulled on a soft sleeping shirt and joined him but he wasn’t ready for sleep just yet. Rauf snuggled up next to him when he got back in bed and Altair grabbed his tablet to finish going over the report. It was difficult with Rauf sleeping next to him since Rauf felt soft, comforting and lethargic next to him. Every time his eyes drooped a little he’d shift to keep himself awake.

He was minding his own business when Rauf half woke up enough to punch his leg. “Stop working in bed, go to sleep,” he grumbled.

“I thought you were sleeping,” Altair said mildly.

“Can’t sleep with you working,” Rauf yawned.

Altair looked back at his report with a sigh, “Alright.” He turned off the screen and Rauf smiled when Altair also turned off the lights and slid down into the bed. Rauf wrapped his arm around Altair’s chest, face practically in Altair’s armpit, and went right back to sleep. Altair could feel Rauf’s sleep along the length of his arm as a soft and gentle current that went deep into Altair’s bones. He started to breathe when Rauf breathed and in short time he’d fallen asleep too.

—

He felt strange. Good. Better. And tired. So very very tired. He knew he wasn’t alone immediately and warmth bubbled up from the bottom of his stomach. Jari was sleeping against his bed, holding his hand. His hand tingled pleasantly from Jari holding it and slowly he opened his eyes. Jari shifted a bit. It was difficult to impossible to have a restful sleep next to someone you resonated with if they were awake. Similarly, it was impossible to stay awake if one of them was sleeping. Diyari had been asleep enough. He wanted to be awake.

Jari shifted again before opening an eye and saw Diyari was looking at him. He sat up and wiped a bit of drool from the corner of his mouth. “You’re awake,” he said with a smile.

“Mhm,” Diyari nodded, eyes drooping a little even now.

“Good. That’s so good,” Jari squeezed his hand.

“It go okay?”

“Yes,” Jari nodded. “They said you’re fine, and the surgery went off without any problems.”

“That’s good,” Diyari yawned. “I can’t wait to get out of here,” he added.

“I bet,” Jari said. Diyari had been cooped up in the hospital since they’d come home two and a half months ago.

“I miss our home,” Diyari said.

“I kept it clean,” Jari said.

“Oh _did_ you?” Diyari gave him a look. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“I did,” Jari whined. “I was hardly there, it’s clean. I promise.”

“It better be. I won’t be able to kick your butt about it _or_ clean it up if it isn’t,” Diyari said.

“It’s clean,” Jari complained. He doubted it. Jari was the messiest Assassin Diyari had ever met. Which was ridiculous since all Assassins were raised to keep their living spaces clean, orderly, and without chaos. Went along with inspection once a month as novices where their instructors showed up to make sure they were maintaining their rooms. Thankfully Diyari and Jari weren’t year mates or they might have ended up like Altair and Malik because Jari wasn’t neat enough. It was why they still lived mostly apart. Diyari loved Jari so much it was painful when they were apart but he couldn’t stand Jari’s mess. So Jari could be messy in his own room and Diyari’s was regulation clean. That wasn’t to say Jari didn’t spend more time in Diyari’s room of course since Diyari couldn’t have handled Jari’s mess.

“It better be,” Diyari said again.

“You hungry? Should I get some breakfast?”

“No,” he wasn’t really hungry. “I just… I just want to leave.”

“Okay. I’ll ping Cipriano. He’ll come down with your new parts,” Jari said and got up. Diyari missed the comforting feeling of resonance immediately.

Diyari watched Jari get up and go over to the terminal in the wall, type out a quick message and send it off to Cipriano. “Are you hungry?” Diyari asked as Jari sent out another message. To who Diyari had no idea and he was too tired to snoop with zoom. “Just cause I’m not doesn’t mean you should go without breakfast.”

“I’ll eat in a bit,” Jari said, still typing. He pulled up a message he got and smiled. “Cipriano said to come up to the engineering level once you’re up to it.”

“I’m up to it now,” Diyari said. “I want to get out of here. I am so tired of this place,” he groaned.

“I’m sure,” Jari said and finished the long message he was typing to send it. “I’ll go talk to your doctors and grab some clothes from your room. Will you be okay while I’m gone?”

“Yes. Please. I just wanna get it over with,” Diyari grumbled.

“Alright, alright,” Jari closed out of the terminal and stepped back over to him. “I’ll be right back,” he leaned down to kiss Diyari on the forehead before leaving.

With Jari gone Diyari was alone in the room. He sat there for a bit before finally looking down at his arm. He was sort of used to his right arm just being gone now. But it wasn’t like that now. It wasn’t just gone now. It was different. Everything about him was different now. The doctor’s had shaved his head to operate on his head, implant a chip in his brain. After the cut his arm had looked normal but now he could see his stump had three long cuts going up its length. More implants that he knew went up his shoulder to his spine where there were more incision cuts. More implants in his spine and on his leg.

He used his remaining hand to gently touch the surgical scars and the tiny, immaculate, stitches that held them closed. His body would just absorb the stitches and they were so fine and perfect he hardly even noticed them until he ran his finger against it. It was like there was just a line in his skin. No redness, no soreness, no swelling. Just perfect skin marked with an imperfect line. He reached up and touched the back of his head. He felt nothing except for a significantly balder patch of skin they’d shaved off from the buzz cut they’d given him. It was about the size of his palm. He couldn’t even feel the cut. All he could feel was his skin and just had to know that _that_ was where the neural implant was.

He was a cyborg now. He was a _real_ cyborg now. He knew some people in society who would have called him a cyborg already because of his enhancements. Diamond hard skin, enhanced eyes, bones as strong as steel. But they were all natural augmentations he’d undergone either before he was born in an AWC or as injections once he’d joined Alpha. There had been nothing cybernetic about him. Nothing wired or electronic. He’d still been human.

Now he wasn’t.

Diyari was glad he hadn’t eaten before his operation because he felt sick. There was nothing to throw up. He just sat there, staring at the wall across the way, hand on the back of his head.

He was overwhelmed with the desire to rip open the scars and dig out the implants. Some madness that struck him like a twister. He reached down and touched a scar on his stump of the arm again. For a second Diyari dug his nails into the stitching before he realized what he was doing. Thankfully the stitching was strong enough to withstand his fit of insanity. “I want the new arm,” he said aloud to silence his intrusive thoughts. The therapist said that when he had them he should talk to them aloud so it felt more real. “I’m still human.”

It helped a bit but the intrusive desire to rip out the implants lingered. He turned on the screen across from him to have something else to focus on and sat on his hand so he couldn’t do something stupid like pull at his stitches again. All he had to do was wait for Jari to get back and then he’d have plenty of things to focus on and he couldn’t think about wanting to pull his stitches. That sounded great and he really hoped his boyfriend showed up soon.

It felt like a lifetime before Jari came back with fresh, familiar, clothes. A doctor accompanied him and inspected Diyari to make sure he really was fit to leave. He determined that if he could get himself out of here he was fit to do so and Diyari hadn’t been that happy in months. The doctor checked over a few more things, gave him a final check up and said he hoped Diyari made a full recovery before leaving. When it was just the two of them Jari helped him get dressed and helped him into the wheelchair.

On the way out Jari talked almost the entire time, which Diyari thought was weird. Jari was quieter than that. Diyari signed himself out and he was happy to get into the elevator. “Jari,” Diyari said as they switched elevators to keep going up.

“Yeah?”

“Why are you talking so much today? It’s weird.”

The next elevator opened to allow people out and Jari wheeled Diyari on. No one else was using the local elevators here to go up. “Because I know the cybernetic engineering stuff stresses you out. I’m just trying to distract you. Is it working?”

Diyari laughed a little. “Kinda,” he admitted.

“Good,” and Jari continued to carry on about things. About Alpha, about their other friends, about what he did when he wasn’t with Diyari, about anything really.

They arrived at the proper floor and got out. Jari pushed the chair down the hallway and Diyari tuned out his rambling. He was psyching himself for what was about to happen. Jari stopped at a door and knocked. Cipriano opened the door and smiled, his teeth perfectly white against his black skin. “So good to see you, come in, come in,” he beckoned and Jari wheeled Diyari inside.

The office was much like how it had been the last two times they were here. Diyari stayed quiet and let Jari do the talking. The intrusive thoughts started to come back as he stared at the case on the desk. That he wasn’t human. That as soon as he got that new arm he’d be something else. That soon he’d be inhuman. “Diyari, are you well?” Cipriano asked him.

“Huh?” he asked, looking up at the two of them.

“You look unwell.”

“I’m fine,” Diyari said.

“You sure, D?” Jari asked.

“I’m fine,” he told both them and his intrusive thoughts.

“Alright. Well, we should get to in then,” Cipriano said. “The sooner you get them the sooner you can acclimate and feel like nothing ever happened.”

“Okay,” Diyari nodded.

“Right this way,” Cipriano motioned and grabbed the case to show them through another door into a strange room. It was strange because it looked so… comfortable. There was a comfortable looking cot in the middle of the room and along the sides were wood paneled cabinets along with windows that showed lightly wooded areas. The floor was wood here as well like a living space.

“What’s this?” Diyari asked.

“A safe place,” Cipriano said. “We’re not unaware that this is a very stressful situation for a lot of people who get replacements and this is one of the most stressful moments. We have rooms like these to help everyone feel more at ease since it isn’t a workshop. We’re just going have you lay down, or sit, whatever you prefer and when you’re ready we’ll do the initial insertion.”

“Ah, so something he’s used to then,” Jari said. Then he bent over with a wheeze when Diyari jammed his fist into Jari’s gut.

“Excuse him, he’s an idiot,” Diyari said even though his ears felt hot.

“Ah- hah,” Cipriano laughed awkwardly and Diyari couldn’t tell it he was also flustered because his skin was too dark.

“So—“ and Cipriano helped him this time because his useless boyfriend was busy trying to breathe right. Diyari didn’t want to lie down and just sat there. Cipriano pulled up a folding table and put the case on it. “Whenever you feel comfortable and whichever one you want to do first.”

“Is there a recommended order?” Diyari asked nervously.

“Usually the smaller prosthetic is easier to manage first,” Cipriano said.

“Then I want to do that one.”

“Okay. You just tell me when you’re ready.”

Diyari nodded and Jari came to sit next to him. Cipriano waited a moment before leaving to get something from the other room. “How do you feel?” Jari asked.

“Like I’m going to throw up,” Diyari said.

“You’re okay,” Jari said and put his hand on Diyari’s thigh. “I’ve seen it you know. It doesn’t look any different than this one,” he lifted up Diyari’s left hand. “Feels just like skin. Cipriano told me you’d have full feeling and fine motion in it, just like before. It should, if nothing else, make the phantom hand feeling go away,” he squeezed Diyari’s hand. Diyari didn’t talk about it very much but the fact that his _dominant_ hand was gone was horrible for him. He felt so helpless without it. He still reached out for things with it and felt his fingers but when he went to grab he met nothing but air.

“And you’ll be able to walk around and run bullshit tests with me and Alpha again,” Jari said. “But you’re super lucky, you didn’t have to do that pressure test shit we had to do for the past two months. It’s been _torture_ and Altair said now that it’s over we can start ‘real’ training. Or whatever. Having our medic back will be a big help in that.”

At some point Cipriano had come back in and sat down on a chair with a tablet, waiting for Diyari to say he was ready. Jari just kept talking to him and gently rubbing his back and telling him about how great everything was going to be and Diyari relaxed.

“Cipriano,” Diyari said and Cipriano’s head popped up. “I think I’m ready for the first one.”

“Okay, awesome,” Cipriano got up popped open the hard case. He knelt in front of Diyari and rolled his pant leg up a bit. “So there’s gonna be a little jolt, like some static shock. It is totally normal. Now. On three. One. Two. Three.”

Diyari jumped when, as Cipriano said, there was a little shock that raced all the way up his body and made the buzz cut hair on his head prickle. “That it?”

“Mhm,” Cipriano was bent over his foot though and Diyari could feel Cipriano touching it. Touching the foot. “Looks like a clean take,” he leaned back and Diyari looked down. In front of him were his feet he hadn’t seen himself with two feet since Utah. “Move your toes for me.” He wiggled the toes on his right foot easily and then tried the left one, the prosthetic one. They didn’t move. “Hmm,” Cipriano leaned back over his foot and it was a weird sensation he couldn’t quite describe when Cipriano pulled the foot off.

Cipriano lifted Diyari’s leg to see into the surgical implant that had been put in there the day or so before. Other than the tiniest band of metal around the edge there was no indication that his foot was anything but a foot. “Feel this?” Cipriano asked and poked something inside the implant.

“Yes,” Diyari said. “It feels like you’re pushing against the sole of my foot.”

“And this?”

“Yes.”

“Okay let’s try again then.” Cipriano plugged the foot back in and there was a very very minor jolt. “Move your foot for me.”

Diyari moved his right foot first and then moved on to the left one. He looked at it and it didn’t move. Then one of the toes twitched. Jari squeezed his hand. Diyari managed to make the toes move some. “Is this normal?” Jari asked. Cipriano looked up at him.

“What?”

“Difficulty with them?”

“Oh yeah,” Cipriano nodded. “Your brain needs to make the new connections but unlike society prosthetics which can take months to learn to use because of their rudimentary implants with regular use you can gain full or nearly full movement in two weeks. If you wear them every day and work with them every day. If you don’t, it’ll take longer. But yeah difficulty at first is totally normal. You’ll get used to them. So, wanna move on to the arm?”

“N-no. I think I need a sec,” Diyari said, staring at his left foot.

“Alright, let me know,” and Cipriano closed the hard case and went back to where he was in the chair.

Diyari put his leg up on his knee and touched it. It felt like skin. It felt normal and he had the sensation of both touching it with his finger and of the foot being touched by his finger. He just stroked it a little and knew it was weird but he didn’t care. The intrusive thoughts about him not being human anymore didn’t even come into play. It just looked like him, felt like him. He couldn’t stop staring at it and as he stared he tried moving it. Flexing the entire thing, wiggling the toes, curling the foot and rotating it on the ankle that was also totally prosthetic. Things moved jerkily and sometimes took a second as Diyari thought about what he wanted the foot to do, but it moved.

Diyari kept at it for about twenty minutes before he said to Cipriano, “Can I have the arm now?”

Cipriano came back over and rolled his sleeve up. “This’ll be a bit of a bigger shock. Again on three. One. Two. Three.” Cipriano checked over the way the prosthetic met with the implant and was satisfied by it before pulling back. “Move your fingers for me,” Cipriano said. Diyari could make them twitch. “Okay, that’s good sometimes-

But Diyari stopped listening. He moved his arm so that his hands were palm up in his lap. His hands. Two hands. He had two hands again. He made the fingers on the left hand move and then made the fingers on the right hand twitch and curl. For the first time in a long time the phantom sensation of having fingers that weren’t there wasn’t there and when he wanted to move his fingers there was actually something to move.

He stared at them and without warning just started crying. He cried hard and put his left hand up to help cover his face. The other two said nothing and Cipriano just left while Jari leaned against him, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and chest. Diyari had no words. He just cried and when he was able to he hugged Jari back with one arm. He cried like the first time he’d woken up in Colorado and realized he was without only instead of hopelessness he felt like for the first time it’d be like Jari said. It’d be okay. He’d be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like the story consider leaving a comment. I really appreciate it.


	28. Rejection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> following up that last chapter with a real heart warmer /sarcasm

It was a windowless, joyless, little room they’d put him in. They hadn’t hurt him and he’d finally been unbound, but they hadn’t been kind to him either. He’d since been moved out of the hospital ward after he’d recovered from most of his injuries and now he was in this place. He’d been in here for days. Or he thought it was days. No contact from the outside world and his food came to him as a tray pushed through a hole in the bottom of the door. It was tasteless gruel and Cain ate it just so he didn’t die. He slept when he was tired and was awake when he wasn’t. There was a toilet at least so they weren’t savages.

He started when the door opened and five people in that black carapace Omega battle armor entered. Four of them flanked the door and a fifth came over and dragged Cain to his feet. He struggled a little but they hardly noticed. They just dragged him forward and out of the room. The four formed a ring around Cain and the other Omega as they dragged him down the hall and into another room. He was shoved into a chair that had a video screen displaying another room similar to the one he’d been in. Except this room had a small, naked, figure in it, curled up with their back to the camera.

Cain looked at the Omega who’d dragged him here. “What did you do to him?” he asked. They didn’t answer. “What did you do to Daniel!” he cried and tried to get up. They just put their hand on his shoulder and forced him back down. Cain looked back at Daniel. He’d been skinny when they’d met but now he was positively emaciated.

“Tell him to eat,” Omega said and pulled a cord with a mic up from the console to Cain’s face.

“What?” Cain asked.

“He’s refused to eat for thirteen days and will only take water. Tell him to eat or he _will_ die.”

Cain looked at the soldiers around him in horror. These people were inadvertently torturing this child. Cain leaned forward. “Daniel,” he said into the mic. The form didn’t move. “Daniel, it’s Cain.”

Daniel shifted and looked behind him at where the camera must be. They weren’t hiding the camera apparently. “Really?” Daniel’s voice was weak.

“Yes. Starving yourself isn’t helping anyone, Daniel. You need to eat something.” Daniel narrowed his eyes and put his head down again. “I don’t think he believes me. What did you do to him?”

No one answered him but they looked like they were talking inside their helmets. Or Cain assumed by their otherwise random head movements. He had no idea what they were saying. Then one of the Omega left and Cain just sat there. They waited and the Omega came back with a beautiful looking man. It was the first man Cain had seen since he’d been brought to this terrible place and in every way Omega was threatening and hard the man looked gentle and soft. They came over to Cain, “Ah, so they finally listened to reason. Thank goodness,” he said and Cain felt more than saw the disapproval radiating from the Omegas.

“Who’re you?” he asked, keeping focused on the man.

“Rho,” he said.

“What sort of name is Row?”

“ _Rho_ ,” he said again, knowing Cain was saying it wrong. He wasn’t even mad, just patient and understanding. It was sort of off-putting honestly. “I wish it didn’t have to be like this but it’s become a situation we can’t make light of.”

“You mean like you starving a child in a god damn box like a bug?” Cain demanded.

Rho was unruffled but Omega squeezed Cain’s shoulder hard enough to hurt and the others around shifted. They didn’t like Cain’s hostility. “We tried to feed him,” Rho said. “He refused. He is fed more often than you but he will not eat.”

“You put him in a cell like a prisoner, can’t imagine why he wouldn’t come along quietly,” Cain growled.

“Only after he broke things in the other rooms we gave him. He scared the other children we put him with, hit them and refused to listen to even the most basic requests. So we had to do what we must till he became reasonable. We didn’t expect his stubbornness to get his way to get in the way of his survival. We know he doesn’t want to die. He just won’t do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

“Well, what do you want from me?” Cain asked.

“Bring him,” Rho motioned and walked out. Omega shifted her grip and dragged Cain out after Rho.

They went to another door and Rho opened it with a thumbprint. The open door revealed to be the one Cain had seen through the video screen. He moved forward and Omega didn’t stop him. He walked right past Rho into the padded room and over to Daniel’s form that hadn’t moved an inch the entire time. “Daniel,” Cain said as he crouched behind the kid. By the god why had they taken all his clothes? The kid had no privacy and no dignity. No wonder he’d thrown a huge temper tantrum and refused to eat, refused to obey. “Daniel, it’s Cain,” he touched Daniel’s shoulder.

Daniel looked up skeptically and then his blue eyes widened. Daniel sat up and to Cain’s surprise hugged him. “You’re real,” Daniel said.

“Of course I’m real,” Cain said gently and held him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Daniel looked behind Cain and pointed at Rho and Omega. “They said you were a figment of my mind from sun sickness,” he accused and pointed at them. “They said I’d made you up and that there had never been another person with me in the outback. They lied to me.”

“Funny, they did the same thing to me,” Cain said. Daniel stuck his tongue out at Rho and Omega. “Daniel, you need to eat something. If you don’t you’re going to die.”

“I thought they were hurting you. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of getting me if they took you away.”

Cain had no idea what Daniel was talking about with that. “I’m fine. I’m alive. _You_ need to stay alive too. You need to eat.”

Daniel looked down a little. “Okay,” he said softly.

“You’ll eat now knowing I’m alive?” Daniel nodded.

“Good,” Cain looked up. Rho was standing there. Daniel hugged Cain tighter. “I don’t know why you had to be so difficult, Daniel. We just want to help you,” Rho said in such a sweet and gentle way Cain believed him. “We want to help both of you.”

“You _literally_ kidnapped us,” Cain said. “The only thing you can help us with is letting us go. Or keeping those creepy Omega things away from me.”

“Omega is here for your protection,” Rho said.

“So I’ve been told,” Cain said and looked back at the four Omegas standing in the doorway as the fifth came up. Daniel squeezed him when Omega came over and dragged Cain to his feet.

“Let go, child,” Omega said.

“No,” Daniel said, holding onto Cain’s waist.

“Do not make me remove you.”

“Then I’ll die and you’ll be fucked,” Daniel growled. “I’m not scared of you and I know you want me. You have nothing that can hurt me, or force to sustain me. If I die you have nothing.”

“Omega, let him go,” Rho said.

“You do not command me,” Omega said shortly.

“The Mentor will be displeased if you fail in this.” Cain could hardly believe how totally docile and calm Rho was even faced by Omega’s hostility. “Or if you harm him.” Omega looked down at Daniel who glared up at her. “Release the outsider, it will be dealt with.”

Omega released Cain roughly. Daniel loosened his hold on Cain some and Cain put his hand on Daniel’s shoulder protectively. He didn’t know why he was so worried about this kid. Maybe because he was the only scrap of normalcy in this insane place. The last thing from the outside. Or maybe because he knew it was the right thing to do because sure as shit these people were going to do something with him. Cain didn’t know what, but whatever it was it was better if neither of them were alone.

“See that he eats,” and with that Omega turned and walked out, signaling with one hand and the others followed behind her. The door closed with a heavy click.

“Women,” Rho sighed a little. “So dramatic,” he shook his head and looked at Cain. “You’ve been very helpful to us, Mr. Barrows,” he said.

“Yeah, sure,” Cain said. “Wanna tell me what the _hell_ is going on?”

“You’re in a safe place now. Everything is fine,” Rho said kindly.

“Don’t give me that shit.”

“Yeah. We were kidnapped, and they almost killed Cain,” Daniel said.

“Are you hungry, Daniel?” Rho asked.

Daniel shook his head. “He is,” Cain said.

“Then let's get you something to eat, hmm?” Daniel’s head shake turned into a nod and still clinging to Cain they followed Rho to the door. Rho opened it and there were only two Omega out here now.

“Where are you going?” This Omega sounded different from the others Cain had heard. Still a woman but not ones he’d dealt with before.

“Just down the hall. It’s fine,” Rho said kindly.

“We’ll accompany you,” they looked at the other Omega who peeled themselves off the wall.

“Can’t trust outsiders,” the other said, also a woman. Rho was literally the only man Cain had seen in nearly two weeks since he left home and it was weird.

“If you insist.”

“We do,” the first Omega said.

“Very well,” and Rho led them down the hallway. They passed several more doors, all with thumbprint locks. Before they’d gotten to the end Daniel needed to half carried. He was too weak to walk on his own.

They were shown to an office and Daniel was grateful to sit down. Rho left them with the two Omegas to watch them and returned with a small meal for Daniel. Daniel eyed it before devouring it. He was licking the bowl clean when Cain asked, “Can he have more?”

“Of course not,” Rho said. “He starved himself. Food must be reintroduced in small portions or he’ll get sick. He may even get sick now from eating it so quickly. You mustn’t be so difficult Daniel, we’re only trying to help you.”

“I hate you,” Daniel told Rho.

“Daniel,” Cain scolded him. “Rho’s literally the only one in this place who’s been nice to us since we got here.”

“Because he’s supposed to be,” Daniel said accusingly. “I heard them talking in their office.”

“Don’t tell lies Daniel. It’s bad manners for children,” Rho said.

“And impossible,” one of the Omegas scoffed.

Daniel glared at them, “So am I. You don’t know shit, grunt. All you do is follow the blind.”

“You little-

“Omega,” Rho said gently. The other held the angry one back. “There is no need for harsh words here.”

“That dragon lady sent him cause he’s good at being nice,” Daniel told Cain and pointed at Rho accusingly.

“I don’t see how that’s a bad thing,” Cain said. “Could use a little more niceness around here after what I’ve had to deal with at the hands of… those _lovely_ ladies.”

“Sarcasm is unbecoming, man,” Omega said.

“The Mentor instructed me to see to your needs,” Rho said. “I am simply fulfilling my purpose. I also find what Omega was doing deplorable. When I found the source of Daniel’s stubbornness was not just stubbornness, but you,” he looked at Cain, “the answer to fixing it was clear. It often takes an outside source to see the solution for a difficult issue, like Daniel.”

“Screw you,” Daniel growled.

“So… you’re our new keeper or something?” Cain asked.

“No,” Rho said. “I’m to assist in your assimilation.”

“Woah. Wait. Hold on,” Cain held up a hand. “Absolutely not. I have a life. I have a job, a home, back in Melbourne. I want to go home.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

“What?”

“We cannot allow you to leave now that you know of our existence.” He hated that Rho still sounded so kind when he said it. Like it was obvious. “So your option is imprisonment or assimilation.”

Cain leaned back in his chair and just stared at Rho feeling hopeless. “Can I have some pants?” Daniel asked.

“Will you behave? I was told you were _very_ naughty before you were taken down here.”

“Yes,” Daniel said.

“Omega, please go find some clothing for the child.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave you alone with him, Rho,” Omega said.

“Nonsense. I’ll be fine.”

“You know how society people are.”

Rho just smiled. “I appreciate your concern. Just because I’m a man doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself. Now please, only one of you needs to leave.”

“Alright, I guess.” The Omega left but the other stayed and moved over to Cain’s side of the room before leaning against the wall.

Cain looked at the armored woman. “What’s up with them? Who are Omega?”

“Omega is here for everyone’s protection,” Rho said. Cain got a feeling he wouldn’t get much more than that. At least not from Rho.

“Okay,” he leaned forward on the desk. “Look, Rho. You seem like a reasonable guy. But I _can’t_ stay here. I obviously don’t belong here-

“Which is what I’m here for. You will learn.”

“Not to mention I don’t _want_ to be here. My job is expecting me back soon if not already. My friends are going to wonder where I went. I have a house I’m still paying for. I can’t just stay here!” Cain felt himself getting a bit hysteric.

“Those things no longer matter,” Rho said. “The Mentor is not allowing you to leave and her word is law.”

“Your law. Not my law. You can’t just keep me prisoner in this place. I’m an Australian citizen.”

“And in here, unfortunately, that means little,” Rho said. “This is your home now.”

“I refuse,” Cain said, leaning back and folding his arms stubbornly.

“Then we can put you back where you were until you agree,” Rho said.

“Then I won’t cooperate,” Daniel piped in. “Your Mentor won’t be happy about that if you fuck that up.”

“Which is why I’m trying to make you understand. Your life won’t be bad here, Mr. Barrows. It will be very fulfilling and pleasant. No one ever wants to leave. It’s safe in here.”

“Safe from what?”

“The outside of course. It’s very messy out there and we’ve done our best to protect everyone both in here and in Australia from outside threats. In here there is no strife. We are as close to a utopia as you can hope to get.”

“I’m sure you tell that to all of your prisoners,” Cain wasn’t impressed.

“Only because it’s true,” Rho said. “If you allow us to, we can show you that our way is a good way, and you don’t have to worry about things like you did in your old life. You can do things that are fulfilling without having to feel burdened to maintain it by working. Isn’t that what anyone wants?”

“To be honest you people haven’t done a lot to make me trust you. First, you beat the shit out of me- kidnapped the both of us- strapped me to a hospital bed, twice, and then put me in solitary for days.”

“I am sorry about that,” Rho said with such sincerity Cain knew he actually meant it. “That was before it was determined I should be brought in to assist. The Mentor… makes the best decisions she can.” Rho looked over at Omega out of the corner of his eye. “And sometimes they need to be changed to achieve the same goal.”

Omega came back into the room with clothes for Daniel. Daniel gladly pulled on the elastic shorts, and a t-shirt so he wasn’t just awkwardly sitting there naked. Cain saw the Omegas have a conversation inside their helmets but said nothing to the three of them in the room. “So I either do what you say or I’m fucked then?”

“We just want to help you become the best you can be,” Rho said. “You are free to do that here.”

Cain sighed and looked at Daniel. “Well?” he asked the kid.

“Assassins in this part of the world are crazy,” Daniel said. “I’d rather have been picked up by the N.T.D.” Behind them the Omegas stiffened and Cain felt their hostility. Cain had no idea who or what the N.T.D. was but apparently it was bad. “Grandpa warned me about you.”

“Who was that?”

“None of your damn business,” Daniel said. “I reject you. I reject every single one of you. Tell your Mentor that.” Daniel looked at Cain, “Except him.”

Rho sighed. “I see this will take time for you to understand.”

“I understand,” Daniel said. “I just don’t like you. I know about you. I know what you do, what you’ve done. I know enough to reject you and that you’re too weak to let me go. Which is what this is about. You’re weakening and have nothing. Sure as shit nothing for me. It’s why you want me, and why you want him too and didn’t just kill him after you brought him back here,” he looked at Cain briefly.

Rho either didn’t know what Daniel was talking about or knew exactly what it was about but didn’t want to give anything away because he showed no reaction. “Very well. If that is how you feel. Omega, please escort them out. Put them in a room big enough for two. A real one. No need for padding.”

“You’re sure? What if he hurts himself?”

“It will be fine,” Rho said. “I trust your judgment and to keep them in order if needed.”

“Very well.” Cain was dragged to his feet. Daniel was practically lifted off the floor by the other. Daniel tugged at the hand holding him but Omega was firm. “Come along,” Omega said.

“Go to hell!” Daniel yelled.

“Daniel, that’s enough,” Cain tugged his arm out of the Omega’s grip and put both hands on Daniel’s shoulders. “I don’t want to go back into a cell,” he’d hated it. He wasn’t claustrophobic but it had still made him so uncomfortable to be in there.

“Come along-

“Wait,” Rho said, holding up a hand and Omega stopped.

Cain squeezed Daniel’s shoulders so he wouldn’t say anything. “I’ll comply,” he said.

“Really? Just like that?”

“I don’t like it, but I’ll do it,” Cain said seriously. “I know a losing hand when I see one and I’m not even that good a poker player.”

Rho smiled a little bit, “Very well,” he stood up. “Come with me then, we’ll see what we can do for you.” Rho beckoned and hands still on Daniel’s shoulders he led Daniel after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like the story consider leaving a comment. I really appreciate it.


	29. Starting Fresh for the Second Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays!

Altair had requested a sim room for the entire week for private use. Usually, normal Assassins of Altair’s rank could only request them for a few hours at a time and only First Classes could commandeer sim rooms for a day or days at a time. But, like nearly everything about Altair, he was an exception to the rule. When Alpha-One requested a sim room for a week, he got a private sim room. Or really just Altair. Not even Giovanni could have gotten an entire _week_ of private use for a sim room. Altair had no thoughts that it didn’t have something to do with the fact that Rauf was a First Class and that Mario liked him. Or liked him enough despite Altair always being a bit of an annoyance for him.

For the first time in two months, his entire squad was together too with no Alpha-Betas getting in the way. Or rather, this would be Ziio’s final test since she’d already proved herself in a live fire test out in Colorado. In his head, Altair was already thinking of Ziio as Alpha-twelve so it was just semantics and to make sure she could push through. All of them had to push through.

He did a final count to make sure everyone was here. All twelve were here, even Diyari. He’d postponed another week so Diyari could get a feel for his new prosthetics and he was standing on his own between Sally and Ziio in numerical order. Altair was glad he was there. Mostly glad he was just able but also glad so he didn’t have to pick someone from a lower squad like Foxtrot to elevate to become his new medic. Medics were rare to come by with any real proficiency because of the things upper squads went through to alter their bodies.

“Alright then,” Altair said after looking them over. “You’ve all survived your pressure tests, which is good. Now reconditioning begins.” He paused a moment. “I’ll be honest, kids,” he frowned as he spoke, “a lot of the other squads think you’re green and shitty. And they aren’t all wrong. Most of you are young and we’ve had a lot of training to work on that but you aren’t Alpha. Not the Alpha I came into.

“Which is my fault honestly. I didn’t train you well enough, so you’re not what you should be. The Alphas before you have all been better. They were real top of the class. The pinnacle of what an Alpha should be. You’re… not quite up to it. Which again, probably my fault because I’ve also seen what Alpha goes through. I know what they become. I know how amazing they are, and how deeply they fall when they lose it. My old Alpha-mates resent being else then what they were. They were Alpha to death, but Alpha didn’t kill them, so instead they have to live without. I’m glad you’re all not as close as you could be, as close as my old squad was, but I also see that that’s a mistake.

“I failed you in a way really. Because I didn’t train you as hard or as long or as closely as I was you’re weaker than what you should be. Alpha should be an unchipped sword edge of the Order. Under direction of their leaders, they strike true. And we’ve been striking… a bit off the mark. If I had trained you as well as I should have, and known I should have, Utah wouldn’t have happened.” A few of them glanced at Diyari but Diyari was just looking right at Altair without flinching. Altair’s lips twitched. “We wouldn’t have been compromised in the first place and the collateral fallout on the Grand Temple wouldn’t have happened and what’s happening in Colorado right now also wouldn’t be happening.

“The Mentor foresees Colorado becoming a nonentity within a few years. Either they destroy themselves in their civil war, or Utah takes them over and we lose all of Colorado to them. The FRN and Texas governments are in talks now to decide what they want to do for Colorado. To help them, or let Utah take them over. I don’t know how many of you are keeping up with the world bulletins sent out every day, which judging by your faces that isn’t a lot of you, but casualties in Colorado are starting to stack up. They don’t know if sending troops to aid Colorado will be good for them or will just extrapolate the problems already going on there.

“And _that_ is our fault. It is completely our fault. Because our squad was compromised in Utah and then the extraction was blown and the Grand Temple suffered severe damage. And because it’s our fault it’s my fault, for failing you guys. For not making you the best you can be. Wonder why other than that mission to Manapose we haven’t had any work which we all know was a punishment? Not because of the training. But because the Mentor knows we suck. Because we failed and screwed up so badly he doesn’t trust us to not do it again. The continent can’t afford another Colorado. As members of the highest squad in the Order, it’s our job to keep wars like this from breaking out. Instead; we started one. So yeah, we suck. We suck real bad.” He jabbed his finger into his chest to make a point. They sucked. They deserved the things the other squads said about them. Because Altair hadn’t been good enough for them, had failed them in their conditioning and training.

Taking a breath Altair looked down at the tablet he was holding and flipped through a few prefabs. He’d spent a few hours a day for a week or so during their pressure tests plugged into a terminal with the Core Programmers to make the various scenarios he was going to drill into them until it was a natural response on how to respond. “That’s why we’re starting over. Today. Starting today I’m going to work you so hard you’re going to beg me to release you from Alpha.” He selected one of the prefab sims and the room started to distort and change. He looked up at them with grim promise in his voice. “But I’m not going to. Rules of Alpha, as they’ve always been, that unless injury stops you from performing, or the Mentor or One gives you leave you are in Alpha.” The sim room solidified around them into Salt Lake City. “So now we’re going to run drills and I’m going to run you into the ground until I know you’re perfect. Just like my One did for me and his before his. Cause we aren’t going to suck anymore.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t a good enough leader to you till now and didn’t give you the training you needed. But I’m new to this whole thing same as you and we’re learning together. So since I’m learning from my mistakes so are you.

“Now. Here’s our failure, kids,” he said and turned around to face the simulated building. He was standing in front of the Grand Mormon Temple. The simulation was so perfect you could feel the wind on your skin and see the fine grain of the stones that made up the Temple. “We’re gonna figure out where we went wrong and what you should have done instead of blowing it up.” He turned back to them. “Any questions?” No one said anything and they were all gravely serious looking at him and the building behind him. He’d already beat them down. Good. That meant the only place they could go was up.

—

It was exhausting. Every inch of Haytham’s body hurt and burned and ached. The pressure test had been hard but actual Alpha conditioning was brutal. He just hurt and he hurt _everywhere_. He wasn’t the only one laid out on the floor staring up at the Utah stars. The Alpha sim suit was heavy on him in a way his real Alpha suit wasn’t. Altair said he’d made them heavier on purpose. Bastard. Those who weren’t laid out were sitting or leaning on one another. Except one. Altair was still standing. He’d been going through the same simulation as them and his suit was even heavier than theirs but he was standing casually, looking at the tablet he’d kept attached to his hip the entire time. He’d run the entire sim, fighting simulated Utahans who fought like Assassin field agents, with a foot and a half wide tablet strapped to his thigh like it wasn’t even there. He’d done it and hadn’t even noticed it. Because he was better than them. He’d always been better than them and not just because he was old, but because he’d been trained better. Nothing bothered him.

Haytham wanted nothing more than to be like Altair in that moment.

Not for the first time, Haytham was reminded he was just a kid. Even compared to the rest of Alpha. He’d just turned twenty last roll over. He’d joined Alpha around that time too. Everyone else had more experience than him. More field experience, more life experience, and more time to build up endurance. Even their Alpha-Beta was older than him. But right then Haytham didn’t want to be this weak kid he was. He wanted to be better. He knew this was why Altair was driving them into the dirt and showing them over and over again how bad they were. So they could get better. So they would be standing there like Altair and not exhausted on the ground.

Haytham sat up and grabbed his sword. He used it to push himself up so he was standing. His arms ached and his legs screamed in protest. He’d worked his body harder than he ever had before with climbing and running and jumping and holding impossible positions for minutes that felt like hours until his muscles started to shake. But damnit he was going to stand. Altair’s helmet shifted a little and he knew Altair had looked at him, even if the visor was blacked out Haytham knew he’d looked.

“Everyone,” Altair put away the tablet, “get up. Time for another run.”

“You can’t be serious?” Kanwai sighed.

“Haytham’s standing. You can all stand too. If you can stand, you can work,” Altair said, unrelenting. With shaky movements and stiff jerky motions the rest of Alpha got to their feet and shook themselves out. “Stretch. You have five minutes. No one is allowed to sit.”

If there was complaining it was inside their helmets. Haytham read a little hostile body language in some of the squad towards him and he flinched away from it. He hadn’t meant for this to happen. He’d just wanted to be strong like Altair. Regardless everyone did what Altair said and stretched to work out knots in calves or loosen up stiff muscles and joints. Haytham did the same and he heard not a few popped joints from those around him and very audible groans of satisfaction. That usually got a little laughter from everyone.

Five minutes passed too quickly and Altair called them to form up. Around them the simulation reset and they were pushed back, away from the Grand Temple on a moving grid. Haytham shook out his sword arm and hand before grabbing his short sword from the sheath at his side.

Altair stepped in front of them and Haytham went into thermals as Altair started to sign. No one said anything as the sim moved buildings into place around and before them, blocking out the sight of the Grand Temple. Inside his helmet Haytham took a deep breath and tightened his grip on his sword as Altair finished giving instructions and the sim settled. Haytham immediately broke away from the squad along with several others, down a side street. They’d meet up at the Grand Temple. At another street they split again so Haytham was just with one other person.

They’d run this part of the test about fifty times so far today because if any of them were spotted by anyone in the street or by cameras the night would turn to day and they’d have to run it again. It had been a real trial and error that took a long time and everyone had just agreed that they couldn’t just run forward after the first fifteen failures. Now instead of taking only a few minutes to get to the Grand Temple in full view it took them thirty minutes or more as they learned the way cameras moved or waited for people to appear and disappear. And they couldn’t learn and memorize the path from other runs since the scope and speed of the cameras as well as people moving about or people inside buildings was randomized. If any of them spotted you it’d turn day and the eyes that had caught you would project the image of the fuck up in the sky for everyone to see and a marker would appear so everyone could see the mistake. It was embarrassing but they’d gotten a lot better.

Of course in fifty attempts they’d only actually made it to the Temple about twenty of them and of those twenty only made it inside eight. They didn’t have enough experience actually inside to get very far either. Everything was more sensitive and all eight times they ended up making a mistake that had sim enemies show up.

They’d learned to split up by now and only use comms when absolutely necessary. Otherwise they ran silent. Noise would attract the eyes of the sim people walking about. Even walking too loudly would do it, or running. God forbid you run in these heavy Alpha suits. It was like wearing pots on your feet.

Haytham was with Ehan. After he’d made them fail six times in a row in almost the same ways every time Altair had put him with Ehan. With that Altair had also given him the instruction of ‘be quiet. Follow what Ehan does.’ He’d given some other instructions to Ehan but he didn’t know what they were because they’d been over private comms.

Ehan was the slowest guy in the entire squad. He also hadn’t caused a fail and reset even once. The only one who hadn’t. At first Haytham had been too annoyed at being paired up with the weirdo Ehan to really take what Altair had said to heart until Ehan had grabbed him by the arm when he’d about to step out of a hiding place and bodily tossed him into a dumpster because a police officer had walked by. A police officer and Haytham hadn’t even heard him. Hadn’t even seen him when he’d peaked or seen him on his periphery sensors. But Ehan had seen him, somehow. Or somehow Ehan _knew_ he was there.

Now Haytham stayed behind Ehan and literally walked in the same foot steps as Ehan. Not super easy since Ehan had a longer gait than him. When Ehan stopped Haytham stopped and he watched Ehan constantly. That had messed them up a few times though when his focus on Ehan had gotten him caught. But in the forty something attempts he’d been shadowing Ehan he’d started to adapt and now could focus on Ehan and what he was doing _and_ was fully aware of his surroundings. Or pretty aware.

Ehan was stopped at the entrance of an alley. Haytham stayed back in the shadows but was also trying to see what Ehan was seeing. The street looked empty to him except for a single camera on top of a street light down at the end of the block facing the other way. They stayed right where they were for more than five minutes and Haytham just wanted to keep moving. “Ehan,” he said over private comms between the two of them, “the coast is clear.” It was honestly one of the few times he’d tried talking to Ehan other than to say he’d heard something or saw something or to say he understood when Ehan told him to do something.

“No, it isn’t,” Ehan said.

“It looks clear.”

“Look in the third window across the street,” was all Ehan said.

Haytham looked. He saw nothing. “I don’t see-

“The corner, on top of the computer. Use zoom. What do you see?”

Haytham did as instructed. His eyes widened. “That’s an active webcam.”

“Looking right at this alley,” Ehan said. “I asked Mira to cause a minor power disruption to kick the machine off since I doubt it’s on a power supply.”

“How did you see that?”

Ehan didn’t say anything at first. “I figured out the tricks Altair is using by now. Same dumb stuff that exists in society you don’t think about or hear about unless it ends up on the web.”

Haytham stared at Ehan. Ehan had figured it out? How? It seemed complete random and impossible to Haytham. Once again Haytham was reminded he was just a kid and Ehan was almost thirty and before Alpha he’d been a Foxtrot-eight before Altair had picked him and Munahid up to start his new Alpha squad a few years ago. They’d both been allowed to pick their numbers. Everyone else had just fallen numerically around them. He had more actual field experience than the rest of Alpha except for Altair. Ehan had figured it out because he knew what to look for, because he had experience.

Then Haytham had the brilliant insight that this was exactly why Altair had put him with Ehan. Because Ehan was experienced, and because he saw the little things that Haytham didn’t. He saw the active webcam in a dark store where Haytham never would have until it had been pointed out by his failure. Altair had put Haytham with Ehan because Ehan had a lot of knowledge Haytham could use that other Alpha members might figure out on their own because they were older with more experience and he wanted Haytham to have that knowledge too.

“Okay, let’s go,” Ehan said and slid out of the alley without warning. Haytham hadn’t even seen any lights flicker. Maybe Mira was talking into his helmet. Haytham followed after him, a step behind him, stepping right where he stepped. Then he saw Ehan’s shoulders sag with a groan when the night sky changed abruptly to daylight and a picture of Chris was projected into the sky. Down the street Haytham heard Sally yelling at Chris over the external speakers for being a fucking idiot. At least Haytham thought it was Sally. She was the one of the twins who usually got mad when people were too rash or failed in stupid ways because they didn’t think things through so it was a pretty safe bet it was Sally. Sarah wasn’t a hypocrite enough to yell at someone for reckless behavior.

“Well, let’s go back to the beginning I guess,” Haytham said over the speakers.

“Right,” Ehan sighed and this time Ehan followed him back to the starting position.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like the story consider leaving a comment. I really appreciate it.


	30. Changing Landscapes

It took them three days for all of them to consistently make it to the front of the Grand Temple. Munahid was having nightmares about it. Everyone was having nightmares about those damn doors. At least Altair wasn’t a slave driver. He only had them in the sim for eleven hours a day and not sixteen like Munahid had heard had happened more than once when Giovanni had been Alpha One. But eleven hours of uninterrupted hours of sneaking through simulated Salt Lake City in heavy gear a day. More than enough to make sure no one saw anyone but each other and their own beds. No shit they were starting to have nightmares about it.

They were distinctly worse for Munahid. His pilgrimage inflicted trauma was just heightened and worsened each failure. More than once he just wanted to sit down and cry in his helmet. Not that the exercise was hard physically but it was horrible for his mental health. Just going there once in real life had been had enough and he’d used ever ounce of bravado he’d had to make everyone think he was fine when they’d entered Utah airspace. Having to retrace the streets of Salt Lake City he was actually familiar with after living there almost a year from the border shut down stripped him of any of it. But despite all that, and despite wanting to break down, he didn’t. He couldn’t.

For the entire exercise Altair had been attached to his hip, watching his every move. Of course, Altair didn’t actually have to really do the exercise. He could already do it. After the first day there had been some grumbling that it was impossible and Altair had run the scenario himself. He’d made it to the Temple doors in fifteen minutes without a single camera or eye seeing him even once. It did nothing but show everyone how much they sucked, just like Altair had said.

Altair questioned every move he made. Every time he spoke he had a tilt to his head like ‘was that the right thing to say?’ Every time he gave an order, suggestion, answered a question, or even just moved Altair would wait and then say either ‘good’ or ‘bad’.It made Munahid paranoid but he also saw what Altair was doing. He’d fucked up and his leadership skills were in question. If Munahid was an incompetent leader if Altair wasn’t around to hold his hand and tell him what to do and how to do it he was useless on Alpha and Altair needed to know if Munahid _was_ not good enough and find someone else who could.

Day four Altair put a timer in the corner of their helmet views. While they could get to the Temple it took them over an hour. The timer was thirty minutes. If they didn’t make it in thirty minutes the sky would turn day and it’d reset. It added a whole other level of frustration to the ordeal but they knew it was possible since Altair had done it in fifteen minutes.

Near the end of their ninth hour running the sim they ran out of time and the entire thing reset. They were back, blocks away. Munahid was tired. They were all tired. Altair usually gave them five minutes to pull themselves together after each failure so not a few people sat down. Everyone started when Kanwai took off her helmet and spiked it onto the ground as hard as she could and then kicked it like a football. The helmet sailed off into the distance before crashing into the wall that showed a synthetic sky.

“Fuck this shit,” she said and was yanking off her sim suit.

“Kanwai, what are you doing?” Haytham asked.

“I’m fucking sick. Of this. Shit,” she threw off the gauntlets and the illusion of the Alpha suit wavered and shimmered but remained whole. “I’m not running this stupid sim anymore.” She reached behind her and unzipped the back. Ziio put her hand in front of her helmet’s visor because under the sim suits they were all naked. Kanwai didn’t care. She was angry. She flinched when Altair grabbed her wrist before she could peel off the top of the sim suit.

“That’s enough,” he said.

She jerked away from him. “Yeah. I’ve had enough. I’m done.”

“No. You’re not,” he said, calm.

“Yes, I am.” She glared back defiantly. “I’m tired of failing,” she pointed at no one in particular in accusation. No one was saying anything. “Why should I have to be dragged down and made to do this over and over and over when I’ve been able to make it to the Temple since day one?” she demanded. Not that she was wrong. She and Jari consistently made it to the Temple doors for someone else to fuck up.

“You’re part of a team, Kanwai. Their failure is your failure.”

She didn’t like that and Munahid knew that wasn’t the right thing Altair should have said either. “Then I don’t want to be part of this team anymore if it’s full of a bunch of screw ups!” she yelled. “I joined Alpha because we’re the best. Because you’re the best. Instead, it’s a fucking joke. This is a joke.” She finished tearing off the top of her sim suit so she was just in her sports bra, making the illusion of the Alpha suit shatter like glass back to the ugly white sim suit. “I didn’t finish top of my class and fucking groom my pilgrimage to be actually helpful when I returned to the Order for this bullshit. I went to _college_ on my god damn pilgrimage instead of all the shit my year mates were doing like fucking, partying, and acting like wild maniacs because they didn’t have order anymore. Fuck this shit.” She pushed her sim suit down even more to around her hips.

Altair just stood in front of her, arms folded. “You done?” he asked her, not impressed.

“Yeah. I am done. Done with entire bullshit.” In a final movement she yanked the sim suit down all the way and stepped out of it. She kicked it away too and stood practically naked in the sim room. “Done with Alpha.” With that she turned and walked away with perfect grace and dignity. Everyone watched her go and Munahid could imagine they were as wide-eyed as him even though they were inside their helmets.

The sim room door opened and Kanwai walked out, it closed with a soft hiss. The room was quiet. “Did that… really just happen?” one of the twins asked. Munahid had to use his HUD to tell him who it was. It was Sally.

Altair popped his helmet off. He didn’t even look mad. “Everyone break for the day,” he said. “I’ll ping you when we reconvene.”

“Not tomorrow?” Haytham asked.

“Might be tomorrow. Don’t know when tomorrow.”

“Are you going to let Kanwai out of Alpha?” Chris asked.

Finally, Altair’s face showed emotion. It was amusement. “Of course not. She’s having a temper tantrum and throwing a fit because she’s frustrated.”

“She should be,” Jari grumbled, arms folded, his own frustration at constant failure finally cracking through the surface.

“Why’s that?” Altair asked.

“Cause she’s been doing everything right.”

“No. She hasn’t,” Altair said.

“But she gets to the Temple almost every time,” Mira said.

“She does. But she’s alone, isn’t she? This isn’t a test to see who can do it, I know you all can do it. It’s training to make you work together so you can all make it there together.”

“Like you said,” Munahid piped in, “Our failures are her failures, and hers are ours.”

“But she’s not failing,” Mira was still very confused.

“She’s not acting like she’s part of Alpha,” Munahid said but wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at Altair who was just looking at him out of the corner of his eye. “She doesn’t stop to help anyone else make it and just goes on ahead without thought to how the rest of us will make it there. That’s her failing. Understand now, Mira?” Mira nodded.

“Good,” Munahid nearly had a heart attack when Altair said that but realize it wasn’t directed at him- he didn’t think so- “Now keep an eye on your messages. Rest up. This training is far from over.”

“What about Kanwai?” Chris asked.

“She’ll be here too,” he said. “She can throw her tantrum but she’ll be back.”

“You sure?” Sarah asked.

“No. I know,” Altair said. “Dismissed.”

After that they dispersed. Helmets were popped off and everyone stripped off their sim suits. Only Ziio had any reservations about getting down to her undergarments but she was the only one. Everyone else stripped down and took their suits with them out of the sim room to a chute that would take them to be cleaned for next time. Munahid took Kanwai’s and Chris grabbed her helmet. The helmets were left on a shelf and they’d be collected to be detailed so they were clean for whoever wore them next. Across the hall from the sim room was a bathroom and Munahid twisted aside when Chris and Haytham charged forward to go take showers and get out.

He shook his head after them and entered at a more reasonable pace. The showers was a gang shower and while there was a male and female dividing wall for normal use it didn’t really matter. Munahid just stood off to the side and sighed when the twins slapped and beat at Chris for making passes on them and yelling about how gross he was. That made a few of the others laugh as Chris went to sulk and Munahid didn’t know how he’d ended up on a squad with so many young people who were so immature all the time. What the hell had Altair been thinking?

“Children,” Munahid jumped a little at Altair’s voice behind him.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Munahid admitted and turned to look at the very naked Alpha One.

“Makes me feel old,” Altair said and then rinsed the light shampoo out of his hair.

“I was thinking more they’re immature,” Munahid said lightly.

Altair laughed and shook out his hair. “Same as my squad when we were young,” he said in a tone Munahid would call wistful. “Product of being young people who spend too much time together in a high-pressure environment. They act immature. Let out the stress-”

“Chris you fucking weirdo!” they both looked when Mira yelled.

“I didn’t do anything,” Chris whined. “I’m literally standing over here minding my own business.”

“Pft, yeah you were,” Haytham said sarcastically.

Munahid sighed. “He’s a problem,” he said, tuning out their complaining.

Altair just found it amusing. “Yeah. He’ll grow out of it.”

“Hope so,” Munahid said and then there was another yell. This time cause everyone was finishing up and there were wet towels to be wound up and whipped at others. “I’m too old for this,” Munahid said with a groan.

“Oi! Knock it off. Not on the arm,” Diyari barked over everyone. “I just fucking got it!”

“Shit shit. Sorry doc,” Sarah said, raising a hand, the other holding the offending towel whip behind her back.

“Bring it down, you’re acting like idiots,” Diyari said, almost mean but with more authority than anyone else. It cowed not a few of them and they slunk away to dry off.

Munahid frowned at Diyari then looked back at Altair as he got out from under the water. Munahid followed his lead since he was mostly clean- he’d shower properly back at his room- and wrapped a towel around his waist. “Chris for fuck’s sake close your legs no one wants to see that,” Jari complained to Chris who was sitting on a bench.

“Then stop looking,” Chris said.

“Kids!” Altair called and everyone looked at him in silence, more alert and reserved. “Good job today,” he said.

“Pft, thanks, dad,” Haytham rolled his eyes at him.

“Pack it up,” and he made a little motion with his hand. With that everyone went about quietly drying off quickly and putting on their casual uniforms. Ziio lagged behind a little, not quite used to the absolute obedience or the casual order that was treated with such seriousness.

“Altair,” Munahid asked as they sat next to each other tying their boot laces. Altair grunted to indicate he was listening. “Can you stay around? I wanna talk to you.”

“Sure,” Altair said. He finished his boots and sat up and watched as Alpha left in bunches or individuals. The twins stopped briefly to poke him a bit before he waved them off with a good humor smile. Then he and Altair were alone in the room. “So, what did you wanna talk about? It better not be more relationship stuff. I’m tapped out,” he groaned.

Munahid chuckled to play off his flush. “No.”

“Oh good,” Altair got up and fixed the t-shirt stuffed into his black pants so it looked more presentable. “Let’s walk, hmm?” Munahid got up and followed Altair out of the showers back into the sim room. Altair took the tablet out of the slot he’d put it in and worked while they walked. “So, what is it?”

“Well,” Munahid said slowly. “Is this necessary?”

“Hmm?”

“Salt Lake City. Is it necessary?”

“It’s what you guys fucked up on. So yes. It is,” Altair said, looking over at him.

“You don’t think it’s a little insensitive? Diyari and Haytham were both tortured in this Temple.”

“So was I,” Altair said.

“Yeah but you’re…

“I’m? What? Different? Unaffected?”

“Stronger than them, I was gonna say,” Munahid said.

Altair lowered the tablet. “And what about you Muna? I’m not unaware that this city is a bad memory for almost half my squad.”

“Then why?”

“Because you’re afraid, and that makes you weak. If you aren’t afraid you won’t be weak.”

“Aren’t _you_ afraid?”

“Giovanni taught me not to be afraid,” Altair said. “Or rather, to be afraid, but to do it anyway.”

“So does this scare you too?”

“No. Not really,” Altair shrugged and brought the tablet back up. The sim room shifted and became a prefab of a room used for movement training.

Munahid frowned at him. “I think it’s insensitive to your agents who have PTSD from this place. Diyari the most of all honestly.”

“Diyari will get over it,” Altair said, not looking at him. “Before we started this, before I even let him _in this room_ , I told him what we’d be doing. I made sure he could handle it.” Altair looked up, “Five days ago I brought Diyari, and Haytham up here and we walked through the Temple. They had their breakdowns then.” Munahid was honestly surprised. Neither Diyari or Haytham had said anything about that. “I’m not cruel, Muna, and I’m not a fool. I know Haytham and Diyari have PTSD from that shitty place. I asked them if they could handle it. They said they could. So I went through with it. Is that all?” he asked him. “Or are you struggling too?”

Munahid wanted to cover his face of the Book of Mormon verses cut into it. “I’m coping,” he said.

“Good. Did you want to talk about something else?”

Munahid didn’t answer him right away, too scared. Eventually, he gathered his courage and asked, “Do you regret making me your second? The entire Utah operation went south, and everything that’s happened… is exactly my fault.”

Altair didn’t spare him and it hurt but Munahid grit his teeth and bore it when Altair said, “I do. You really fucked up. Like completely and utterly failed in every way except getting to us. I thought you’d had enough leadership training in Foxtrot since you sort of headed some fives. I see my assessment was a mistake.” Munahid swallowed hard at the truth.

“Thank you for being level with me, sir.”

“Oh fuck you,” Altair said. “Don’t thank me for telling you you’re a failure. Your failure is mine too. I let you lean on me too much. Too soft on you. Too soft on all of you. It’s why I’m pushing you now so hard.”

“If you could, though, would you pick someone else?”

“Heh. I’d have waited till Diyari came back and seen him. Or Sarah. They’re both good kids. Smart, talented, stable heads on their shoulders.”

“Not Sally or Kanwai?” To Munahid Sally would be better over Sarah. Sarah was impulsive and made bad choices sometimes while Sally thought things through. Diyari was quiet and overlooked a lot. And like Kanwai had said, she’d groomed herself to become an Alpha when she’d returned home.

“Sally thinks too much. She’s here because her sister is here. Sally passed all the placement tests for making it into Alpha. Every. Single. One. Not even _I_ did that. Sarah scraped by by her teeth but she has a good sense of things. She also understands people better than her sister. She’s also why Sally’s part of Alpha. I honestly didn’t care for Sally when they tried out for Alpha-Betas, you know?” Munahid shook his head. “I wanted Sarah in Alpha and I remember asking her to join and she asked me if Sally was too. I said no. Sarah wouldn’t join Alpha without her sister. So I had to take them both.

“Kanwai is too explosive. She’s smart but her temper gets her into to trouble like you saw today. She also doesn’t give a _fuck_ about any of you. But she’s good. She’s probably the best one of us other than me. But she’s not leadership material. She gets frustrated too much and can’t separate herself from what’s happening. She wanted to join Alpha to make a point, because she ate, breathed, and sweated wanting to be in Alpha since she was in the upper levels. Her genetics are blacklisted, she’s got a very rare disease. Not contagious, it’s neurological. No one thought she’d become anything. So she said fuck you and became a member of Alpha.”

“I didn’t know that,” Munahid said.

“Heh. I know all sorts of things about our kids,” Altair’s mouth quirked a little. “You’re not the only one who shows up needing to talk ya’ know. Though you’re the first who’s asked me for relationship advice. So good job on that,” Munahid smacked his hand over his face. “But who would or wouldn’t be a better second doesn’t matter. You’re my second and disrupting the chain of command by promoting someone else is as detrimental as replacing the commander.

“Three Ones ago the second was killed in action. She appointed a new second from the ranks but no one respected it because they were so familiar with them, they were their brother, not their leader. So she tried to appoint someone from another squad. Ended in nearly the entire squad getting killed because of the lack of respect. The Mentor disbanded the squad and had the One appoint her successor from a different squad, train them into a proper leader of Alpha.

“I picked you. And I hoped you were capable. You are, for the most part. But you need work. So I’m fixing my own mistake and making sure you’re more capable.” Altair looked down at his tablet a second, tapped something out on it and then looked back up at Munahid.

“And what if I’m not up to it?”

“You’re a fucking Assassin. You sure as shit are,” Altair said. That made Munahid’s chest warm to know that Altair believed he was capable of becoming a better leader. “Just gotta sharpen those rounded edges.”

“You’re good at this, sir,” Munahid said.

“Hmm? Good at what?”

“Being One,” he said.

Altair laughed. “I’d fucking hope so,” Altair grinned. “You think this shit sucks? Imagine being trained to become Alpha One. I swear I still can’t sit right from how hard Giovanni rode my ass about being One.” That made Munahid laugh too. “I give you what you needed Muna?”

“I think so.”

“Don’t doubt yourself so much. We’ll be fine.” He clapped Munahid on the shoulder with a bit of a smile.

“Thank you, sir.”

—

Later on Munahid was sitting in his room reading and also sort of waiting. He’d sent the ping out earlier but he didn’t blame Ehan for not responding with urgency, he hadn’t made it sound urgent. Knowing Ehan he and Chris had probably left training, eaten as many chicken wings as they could fit into their mouths without exploding and then gone to the gym. Because they were both weirdos like that. _How_ those two could work out after the exercise they’d just done was something Munahid would never understand and he went to the gym pretty regularly. Or he had before this training sim which just left you mentally and physically exhausted.

It was getting late and Munahid gave his messenger an annoyed look. It wasn’t like Ehan to just _not_ answer. Maybe he was anxious because of what he’d said. The longer he looked at the little message the more realized of course Ehan was anxious about it. ‘I wanna talk to you’ sounded awful. First off talking, Ehan’s _favorite_ thing to do in the world. Then it was vague enough to not be able to tell at a glance if it was a good thing or a bad thing and he knew Ehan well enough to know that ambiguity wasn’t something he liked either. Especially since they’d started whatever the fuck they were doing. Realizing he was an idiot Munahid tapped out another message, ‘I wanna talk to you about the sim. Come by my place?’ That was easier and gave something Ehan could qualify.

“Fucking introvert,” Munahid muttered to himself, even as he smiled when Ehan pinged him back almost immediately. It was just a thumbs up because of course Ehan wouldn’t use actual words if signs would work just fine. Munahid went back to his reading, an actual novel, and not a report for once it felt like, and waited.

Ehan knocked a few minutes later and Munahid unlocked the door for him so he could just come in. Ehan gave a small wave, and closed the door behind himself and went over to Munahid. “Could it have taken you long enough to answer?” Munahid teased him.

“Sorry,” Ehan said. “Was busy.”

“Sure,” Munahid said knowingly.

“What’d you wanna talk about?” Ehan asked as he sat across from Munahid.

“How you holding up?” Ehan shrugged. “Don’t gimmie that.” Ehan just shrugged again. “You okay with the sim?”

”I’m handling it.”

“Altair still has you partnered with Haytham, right?” Ehan nodded. “How’s he doing?”

“Fine.”

“Really?” Munahid squinted at him.

“Well enough. No stress to report from the kid, just like I told Altair.”

“Yeah but we both lie to Altair, don’t lie to me,” Munahid said.

Ehan blinked at him and Munahid said nothing. He’d wait. “Was a bit shaky starting out, that’s why Altair put him with me. Kept getting seen, or almost seen. Fear got to him I think. He’s better now.”

“Really?”

“As good as he can be,” Ehan said. “He’s new, still has shit to prove.”

“You talk to him at all?” Ehan just gave him a look. “It’s an honest question.”

“I talk when he needs to be instructed,” Ehan said. “Which is why he’s with me.”

“Such a nice guy, Ehan,” Munahid only sort of teased him and Ehan rolled his eyes.

“And you?”

Munahid didn’t understand the question at first. “Oh. Uh- Fine.”

“You tell Altair that?”

“Yeah.”

“Then don’t tell me that.”

Munahid paused a second, then chuckled. “Okay, I deserved that one,” he said and Ehan smiled a little. “I’m-“ he still felt the lie at the tip of his tongue. He swallowed it. “That’s actually why I really wanted you to come over.” Ehan rose his brows at him. “Remember Utah?”

“Before or after we were released from the hospital?”

“After,” Munahid said. They’d been in the hospital until their wounds had fully healed. Order mandated. So they’d been there a while. Big scarring on the chest and face just didn’t heal overnight.

“I remember California. It was fun.”

“It was,” Munahid said a bit wistfully. They’d had a lot of fun in California and it had made up for the horror of Utah. Except for the scars. Nothing could make up for those. They said nothing for a bit, both remembering the stupid amount of stuff they’d done and the stupid fun stuff they’d done. “But not what I meant.” Ehan just waited for him to go on. “Remember what we used to do?”

“We did a lot of things in California. You’ll have to be more specific.”

Munahid wasn’t embarrassed about it. He just felt like a nineteen-year-old all over again. Scared. Stupid. Alone except for his best friend after a traumatic experience that had been so bad that the Order had actually interfered with their pilgrimage to assign them therapists and ordering them to go to them twice a month for four months. They could have kept going, on the Order’s dime, if they wanted after that. Munahid had never heard of that happening before. But they’d been alone and only had had each other to cope.

“We’d sometimes sleep out in front of the TV because we didn’t want to be alone in our rooms and we were too stubborn to just buy night lights,” Munahid said and Ehan’s lips twitched.

“I remember. Are you asking me to sleep over?” Ehan asked him, amused.

“Maybe kinda?” Munahid said weakly, still feeling scared and stupid as he had back then when he rationally knew he had nothing to be afraid of. When he knew that the people who’d hurt him were hundreds of miles and another country away and couldn’t hurt him anymore. When he knew that given the chance to fight back he would have killed those stupid punks who’d hurt him, or at the very least beat them up if they hadn’t ambushed them. Even when he knew that he’d been scared. “I’m not really… handling the sim very well,” he admitted. Ehan’s brows knitted in concern. “And Altair’s really pushing me.”

“It’s fine. You don’t have to make an excuse,” Ehan said. “I still have nightmares too. I had one when we started.”

“But you’re handling it?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“Cause I know I’m home. I know you’re safe too. And I know I’m not a kid anymore and if anyone did that to me again my brothers and sisters would rip them apart like we did the ones who hurt Diyari and Haytham.”

“I like when you talk a lot,” Munahid said.

“You’re the only one,” Ehan snorted.

“Takes the guesswork out.”

“I have a reputation to maintain,” Ehan said and that made Munahid laugh. Ehan got up from the chair and came to sit next to him. “Were you nervous to ask me?”

“A little,” Munahid admitted and was trying really hard not to be weird with Ehan so close. He’d told Ehan exactly what Altair had told him to say. That he’d try. But he felt awkward about it. It didn’t help in general he hadn’t had a lot of partners. Too invested in his job or girls felt bad for him cause he was all fucked up and he really didn’t like pity sex. Even other field agents pitied his scars. Forget the whole it was a guy situation and Munahid still didn’t know if he liked that or not. He was just taking the whole ‘it’s also my best friend’ out of the equation or he would just be too weird about it.

“Well I’m happy you did,” Ehan said.

“I told you. I’d try it out,” Munahid said.

“And?”

“And what?”

“What do you think?”

“I think I’m not sure yet,” Munahid said slowly.

“That’s okay. I’ll wait.” Munahid hated that that was probably one of the most romantic things someone had ever said to him. Hated it because he was so useless and didn’t know how to feel or if his feelings would change. Hated it because he hated he might tell Ehan it wasn’t going to work and Ehan was important enough to him to even consider trying this in the first place. He, as his best friend, loved Ehan. He didn’t know if he’d love Ehan the way Ehan wanted him to love him. He hated that because of anyone Munahid knew Ehan _deserved it_. He deserved someone who’d appreciate him as much as he should be and deserved someone who loved him too. Ehan wanted that to be Munahid. Munahid wasn’t sure if it would be and he hated that.

Munahid just wanted to apologize right then. But he told Ehan he’d try and it had barely been two weeks and most of it they didn’t see each other. So he was going to try and see if his stupid self realized maybe he _was_ bi.

“Did you want to build a couch fort too?” Ehan asked him teasingly.

Munahid gave a short laugh. “I don’t think I have enough blankets or pillows for that,” he said. “Unless you’re offering yours for building supplies?” Ehan just shrugged. “I think _you_ want to build the couch fort,” Munahid gave him a look. Ehan smiled and looked away as he shrugged.

“I don’t really care. I just like the idea of spending the night,” Ehan said. Munahid flushed and Ehan looked away, his face also a little red. “I’m gonna go, get some things,” he said. Munahid just nodded and Ehan left.

Munahid slumped against the back of his couch with a sigh once Ehan was gone and stared up at the ceiling. “Get it the fuck together,” he whispered to himself. He was practically thirty years old! He shouldn’t get flustered just because someone was spending the night at his place. Maybe it was the fact that it was Ehan. Or that he didn’t know what the fuck to _do_ with Ehan. He had totally honest intentions when he’d invited Ehan over. He just wanted some comfort for his trouble sleeping because of the sim. Did it go further? Oh he really didn’t want it too because if this wasn’t going to work out he’d never be able to look Ehan in the eye again if they did anything sexual.

Munahid groaned and pressed his hand over his eyes. Why had he done this? He’d done this himself to himself. He was a grade-A idiot.

Except he just wanted his best friend to be happy. If Munahid could do that then he could stand to do stupid stuff like this.

Ehan knocked and Munahid was surprised he’d been self-pitying for so long. He allowed Ehan inside. Ehan had a small bag at his side. Enough for a change of clothes and not much else. Ehan gave him a look as he closed the door. “What? What’s with the look?” Ehan just rose his brows at him. “I thought we agreed you’d talk,” he gave Ehan a look now.

“You ain’t the boss of me,” Ehan said boredly.

“I’m your commander I sure as shit am!” Munahid cried even as he smiled.

Ehan came over to him and dropped his bag on the table. “Did you really just invite me over cause of the sim?” It wasn’t accusatory. It was just curious.

Munahid swallowed. “Yeah,” he said.

“Okay,” Ehan said and Munahid didn’t know what he expected. He hadn’t really expected straight acceptance. He didn’t know _why_. Maybe he was building this up too much in his head and Ehan really was as chill about this entire thing as he appeared to be. Ehan just always went with the flow of things. So why would his attempt at a relationship with Munahid be any different? “I’m gonna change into some sleeping stuff.” He picked up his bag again and left, going to Munahid’s bathroom.

“God,” Munahid groaned to himself and rubbed his eyes. He was a mess. An absolute mess. If he didn’t make anything of this neither would Ehan. He needed to fucking _relax_.

With that in mind he checked the time. It was nine. He turned on the TV, which was a part of the wall he’d sectioned off to be a screen, and got up off the couch to change himself. Mainly just out of his pants and into something more comfortable. Normally he slept without pants but he wasn’t doing that. Fuck no. He was sitting back down when Ehan came out of the bathroom. “You… look fucking ridiculous. When did you start wearing that shit to bed?” he asked.

“What?” Ehan asked. He was wearing full, long sleeved, pajamas. Like the kind you saw in old movies about the late twentieth century. They were blue with white vertical stripes and probably the _most_ ridiculous things Munahid had ever seen Ehan, or anyone for that matter, wear. It was compounded by the fact that Ehan could barely fit in the damn things and his arms and chest muscles made the seams strain just a bit.

“What do you mean _what_?” Munahid asked. “You’re wearing weird clothes.”

Ehan looked down at himself. “They’re comfortable,” he said and shrugged.

“Do you wear those to sleep every night?”

“Yeah. I have four of them,” Ehan said.

“When did this start? You didn’t wear them before,” he gave Ehan a look when he came and sat down with him.

“It’s been a decade since you’ve seen what a sleep in, Muna. Shit changes.”

“You look like an old man,” Munahid said.

“I feel like one, so that works out,” Ehan said with a bit of a self-deprecating smile. “Gonna keep complaining about it?”

“I’m not complaining. I’m just in shock,” Munahid said. “I thought you… were cooler than this that’s all.” That made Ehan chuckle. “I should definitely take a picture of this-

“Absolutely not,” Ehan said.

“I wouldn’t show anyone,” Munahid said and wasn’t sure if he was lying or not.

“Mira would get ahold of it _somehow_ and then everyone would see it. No thanks,” Ehan scoffed.

“I guess,” Munahid said.

“So what are we going to rot our brains on, huh?” Ehan asked, nodding at the TV.

Munahid just shrugged and flicked through some channels. It was all previews and once you found something you wanted you watched it a la cart. Munahid decided on something light and relaxing and visually therapeutic; how machines worked and made things in factories. He was startled but not uncomfortable when Ehan moved over to lean on him and after a few seconds relaxed again. During a transition they shifted around to get more comfortable and it was just like they were nineteen again in California.

He realized he’d been silly to think Ehan wouldn’t understand. Ehan was literally the definition of ‘boundaries’ when it came to people. Munahid still didn’t know how this would all turn out but he did know that when they eventually fell asleep on the couch together he felt relaxed and safe knowing his best friend was there with him.


	31. The End is Nigh

So here’s the deal with this story. I really like this story. It’s fun to write and the world is super neato burrito but I don’t want to keep writing it because it is so weighed down by AC mythos. So I’m canceling this fic. But I also had a lot planned for this and I’m sure you’ve noticed the long as fuck scroll bar by now. This fic is canceled; I’m just gonna tell you what happens so people don’t have to come into this later and find it to be miserable because it’s ‘unfinished’. Let’s have some fucking closure hmm?

I will be posting some stuff for this fic on my tumblr writing blog,[ shotgunsandstars](http://shotgunsandstars.tumbl.rcom), and looking up [Pro Human](http://shotgunsandstars.tumblr.com/tagged/pro_human), where you can find the incomplete chapter that would have come next chronologically. You’ll also be able to find the Sad Thing which I won’t be going into in this synopsis, you’ll have to read it and realize WHY I always refer to it as the Sad Thing/Part mainly because I’ve had it written for 4 years and I’m not wasting that shit. I’m also going to be posting some of my notes for PH there including some world buildy stuff and just general information about characters and the world.

At the end I’m also going to be going through past comments and answering some questions posed in there. Any future questions will be answered on my blog. This is not really edited very well so I apologize in advance for any weirdness. There is a lot to explain and while it might look like I missed something I might have, or I might have not thought of it. You're more than welcome to ask about it in the comments though!

Alright then.

So I’m just going to start with what happens to each member of Alpha up to the end of the Season, during their training regime, in (mostly) numerical order.

1\. Altair has to deal with everyone else’s feelings and bullshit and drama. So all the shit below; Altair has to suffer through as well in some way or another. This is along with the fact that he’s got three sons who are _very much_ his sons (even Desmond) and get into all sorts of shit. Desmond is also not a good kid sometimes and Altair gets several calls about the fact that Desmond, for some fucking reason, is picking fights with older kids in the novice halls. On top of this he’s got to deal with Malik who’s been acting weirder and weirder to him as the Season progresses and Altair is just like ‘pls stop. I just want a nap and to not find out my oldest is skipping classes again’. The only sane thing in Altair’s life is Rauf who’s actually happy he’s appeared to make up with Malik, for the most part, and they can have an actual, civil conversation with each other. Despite that Malik is still really weird around him and gets mad at him, not unusual, but not for things he used to like for just existing in the same place as him. They also argue about baby names A LOT, especially when they find out the baby they’ve been joined for is a girl. This all leads up to the Sad Part.

2\. Kanwai has a degenerative neurological disease (which you can read more about on my blog) that interrupts the connection her brain has to her body and nerves system leading to eventually loss of full body control and death as her brain can no longer connect to her organs. There is no known cure and it’s only because she’s an Assassin that she’s even alive as it is as other people with her disease usually die by the time they’re 16 or so but Kanwai is a valuable asset to the Order so they’ve done what they can to keep her alive. Cybernetic implants also wouldn’t help because they’d have to be manually controlled by someone else since the issue isn’t the organs or body parts, it’s her brain. She actually goes in for brain surgery and is out for a while recovering in which Chris visits her like every day and Mira a little less (Mira sometimes brings Ziio). Because of Chris’ obvious care she develops some feelings for him but doesn’t say anything because she knows he sleeps around until one day she realizes that somehow she’s in a relationship with a fucking pyromaniac. It really mellows her out and in general makes her not so angry since Chris is totally down for her expressing her anger on her body’s impotence and general other stuff out on him and not on Alpha like she’s done before.

3\. Chris has to deal with having actual feelings for someone which is really bizarre for him because he’s basically aromantic. But he’s actually got a really bad crush on Kanwai because she’s amazing at everything and looks up to her a lot and respects her ability and what she says even if he acts like an absolute doofus around her a lot of the time and flirts with everyone. It’s the whole ‘friends to fuck buddies to crush to “we’re in a relationship???”’ trope. Through the training Chris learns better self control and impulse control and by the end of their training regime Altair trusts Chris enough to reinstate his access to the armory. Which is good because Chris has been having not constant but semi frequent nightmares because he feels unsafe without his trusty explosives around. Times he doesn’t have them are mainly when he and Kanwai bang and that’s why he gets the epiphany that he’s got feelings for Kanwai. The first person he tells is his little sister Lisa and she’s thrilled because she also likes Kanwai and is immediately ‘have you told her yet????’.

4\. So outside of Alpha Mira is basically a hermit. She mainly stays in her room and is hooked into a terminal to access the net outside of the fortress where she spends most of her time. She also likes watching people over cameras and bitching with her ‘big sister’ Rebecca Crane, aka, the Red Queen. Not actually siblings Mira and Rebecca just went through similar training to become Core Programers before Mira met Altair and basically fell in love with him. Mira was actually going to be a Core Programmer before she ditched out and joined Alpha and Rebecca gets all her whining and complaining about it. In turn Rebecca is constantly trying to get Mira to come down to the Core and be a Core Programmer like she was supposed to. During the harsh retraining Rebecca redoubles her efforts because of the incredible strain it puts on Mira since she’s so much physically weaker than her squad mates and as Red Queen Rebecca could actually demand Mira’s transfer out of Alpha. Mira always refuses.

5\. Everyone’s fave gay sniper. Still hella gay for his besty and also really understanding of the fact that it’s a weird situation and he doesn’t want to make Muna uncomfortable by moving too fast. Then when Muna comes to his decision he’s more than a little heart broken and depressed but does his best to not let it affect him. Since Altair put Haytham with him for basically the rest of the training to make sure he _gave a fuck_ he shifts most of his attention to Haytham to not think about Muna and he basically starts treating Haytham like his kid brother. They get very close and it is strictly platonic. By the time the Season is over Ehan is mostly over his heart break and wants to just go back to being the way he and Muna were.

6\. As you can guess, Muna’s not bi. He’s straight. He does try very hard to like Ehan the way Ehan wishes he does because he wants Ehan to be happy cause he’s Muna’s bff but you can only do so much before your feelings become important. Munahid is very gentle when he lets Ehan down and when Ehan says he needs time to get over it Munahid gives it to him. The last time they really talk till the end of the Season is Muna and Ehan going down to the nursery and seeing Si’u. Munahid is also super glad he and Ehan never had any sort of sexual relations during this trial thing so it’s easier to just go back to being friends knowing nothing actually happened. On a non Ehan related note Altair is fucking _ruthless_ with Muna. He questions everything Muna does and makes sure he only makes good decisions and they, in general, spend a lot of time together. Altair gives Muna similar lessons he got from Giovanni when he first became Alpha One but not nearly as strict or hard. After he and Ehan ‘break up’ Muna also spends a lot more time down in the nursery with Si’u and reads like five thousand parenting guide books because he wants to be a good dad to Si’u. Like how Altair is with his kids and with Alpha and he eventually just has to lay down and go ‘can I just take a nap forever to get out of this?’

7+11. Jari and Diyari go together because everything they do they do together. Even in the last chapters Diyari hasn’t fully gotten complete control over his new arm so Jari always helps him with it. Diyari’s anxiety and depression about his prosthetics also, basically, vanishes overnight because now that he has them he realizes how COOL they are. Jari helps him redevelop his fine motor skills in his hand through exercises Cipriano tells him about and is overall just a super supportive boyfriend in general. By the end of the Season Diyari is making ‘give me a hand’ jokes to be an asshole where he just takes his arm off and throws it at someone who asks him that when they’re being fucking annoying. Everyone freaks out the first time it happens because they know how sensitive Diyari is about his arm until Jari makes a joke about it and they know it’s okay to laugh. They find out they’re having a boy during the Season.

8+10. Like the last two Sally and Sarah go together because they just go together. As you can guess the girls’ names are Sarah and Sally Miller. Yes. That Sarah everyone fucking loves. Not much happens with them during the training and Season other than they grow a bit apart. Sally doesn’t resent her sister for Micheal _at all_. She’s just upset that all she has is Helios. Sally purposefully distances herself from Sarah in an attempt to find out who she is other than as Sarah’s twin. Sarah is upset by this but also sees it as a great opportunity to spend more time with Micheal and her other friends without Sally.

9\. As the youngest, even younger than Ziio, Haytham’s got a lot to prove to everyone. Only up till the start of the story really the rest of Alpha would tease him a lot about being so young and being the newest member of Alpha. His forced closeness with Ehan really helps him come into his own as a person because he’s always been so eager to prove himself as _good enough_. Ehan shows him he doesn’t have anything to prove. He proves it by existing and being a member of Alpha. It goes a long way for his confidence, especially after Utah and what happened in Marcusville where he tried so hard to be tough and brave and not show that he was shaken. He spends a lot of time with Ehan and later, Muna, when the two get back together as friends.

12\. Ziio is officially made a member of Alpha as Alpha-Twelve even if some people jokingly call her thirteen because ‘Desmond is twelve, duh’. She grows very close with Kanwai and Mira.

The only other character that gets an ‘arc’ is Malik. Rauf basically joins Altair’s progression through the Season and talks him down from being like ‘I’m so done with Alpha right now. They’re useless uuuuuuuhg’. But Malik’s got shit going on. Mainly the fact that he slowly realizes… he doesn’t hate Altair. Like he’s not in love with Altair just he just doesn’t hate him and doesn’t hate their resonance. For Malik that quickly turns into jealousy because _he_ was an idiot that he pushed Altair away this far and now that he’s changed his mind fucking tough shit. It makes him act incredibly volatile towards Altair but not in an insulting way. More just general anger mostly projected at himself because he is just now having this realization about Altair. This leads to some semi stalking behavior and some really self destructive behavior that directly leads to the Sad Part.

There are also some major secondary characters that have a bit of a major arc during the Season as well.

This is mainly Daniel and Cain coming into the Australia fortress and Cain having his _mind blown_ because it’s insanity compared to what he’s used to or expected. Daniel hates it, Cain doesn’t hate it but he also doesn’t really want to stay there either. Cain ends up making a few friends, including Rho who keeps tabs on him and Daniel to make sure they’re acclimating to their new home well enough. Cain uses his new friends to learn more about the fortress than he normally should be allowed to and learns about how the only way to send long range communications out of the fortress is down in the support area. To get down there you must be support and Cain tells Rho that that’s what he wants in life out of this fortress. Rho doesn’t know how that’ll work since Cain doesn’t have EVs but Tiamat orders Cain’s desires be humored so he feels like he can be at home in this place. Cain can’t use the devices in the support part of the fortress, but Daniel can, so he starts plotting how he can bring Daniel down here without anyone noticing so they can send out an SOS to get the fuck out of there.

Maelin also gets an arc where Jun introduces her to the new Kappa squad. They are very respectful of Maelin and treat her like a knowledgable older sister. Jun also comes clean about being the new Kappa-One and she hopes Maelin doesn’t think bad on her deceit and not telling her when they first met since Jun is sort of acting as her handler until she can get back into proper fortress life. Maelin never thinks about the child she has except as reoccurring nightmares from her time in the Mormon temple and that she actually gave birth to some hideous monster that devours her. Bo is always around to calm her nightmares though. At some point the new, mostly untested, Kappa, goes down _again_ and Maelin is all in a panic because they’d been sent to raid the Guardians of Light; the organization Leila was taken in by, to acquire a very valuable asset. A task force is sent out to retrieve them and Maelin demands she be part of it. The task force gets to the GoL facility and are met with heavy resistance. In the end they do recover all member of Kappa and the asset, which just happens to be Leila, after they kill the Guardian she had bonded with and bring her back to the fortress. It takes several days for Leila to get over her temper tantrum and allow the Assassins near. She eventually rebonds with Jun.

The last secondary arc is Ezio and it’s just him being a fucking idiot out in society not knowing anything and getting anxiety attacks inside buildings with large windows and experiencing some serious agoraphobia because he’d grown up his entire life inside a box in the ground. Also his relationship with Leo and Clay and he starts to realize… Clay isn’t everything he seems to be and Leo is more than he ever imagined. They become very good friends but nothing outside of platonic happens.

At the end of the Season, the Sad Thing happens. The end of the Season also leads to, obviously, babies being born. There is Altair and Malik’s daughter, Sawsan, and Diyari and Jari’s son, Leon, after Jari’s grand father who was Delta-1 three Deltas before Terry. Once the Sad Part wraps up and Rauf has made himself _very_ clear how fucking pissed off he is there is a time jump of about three years.

—

It’s been three years and Ezio is wanting to return home from his pilgrimage. He does like the freedom but he’s developed pretty bad anxiety out in society and after four years he’s 100% ready to go home but he’s also not in a rush since if he goes home he’ll never see Leo and Clay again and he treats Clay like a little brother and Leo like an uncle. Before he can make his final decision an organization tracking down the kids shows up at Leo’s place and it’s only thanks to Clay that Ezio figures it out before it’s too late. He manages to smuggle Clay and Leo out of the megablock and takes them back to his place where he digs the dead man chip out of his arm and breaks it because he can’t deal with this shit and needs some actual, adult, Assassins to come deal with these dudes with tasers and weighted batons.

The organization (I’m unsure if it’s Templars or not so I’m not saying it’s them) finds them in Ezio’s place but as they break in and Ezio is trying to get Leo and Clay out again Assassins from the Vancouver bureau show up, kick their asses and take all three of them back to the bureau. There Ezio contacts his father on what’s happened and when Giovanni hears about Clay he orders the three of them, and Salai too, to be brought to the fortress in St. Adams for safety reasons and so Leo can continue his work for the Assassins. Leo, of course, is pretty pissed that Ezio lied to him about who he was and his connection to a ‘military’ and their friendship is pretty rocky even though Leo realizes that the fortress is safer than what’s going on out there and Clay also _wants_ to go.

So you know how earlier I said that Desmond was picking fights with kids in the novice halls? Yeah, Tazim was with him. Those two are TROUBLE MAKERS. Like complete and utter trouble makers who, unlike their dads, are bffs. They’re now also older and even more trouble makers and are spots one and two in their class and everyone both likes them for being nice dudes and done with them for being fucking annoying. Then a new kid joins their class and everyone is like ‘well this is weird’ cause Clay can’t fight very well even tho he’s HELLA smart. Then he and Desmond get close and literally just start yelling because ‘holy shit you’re like me!’. Tazim is really confused about why his bff is suddenly all over and hugging his new kid and talking to him in some language none of them know and new kid is talking to him _back_. Tazim is more than a little annoyed at suddenly seeming to be Desmond’s #2 bro.

Meanwhile Alpha has basically become what it should have been. They haven’t had any new members since Ziio and they are a very close knit unit. Chris and Kanwai are in a relationship and Kanwai probably only has a few more years to live and unfortunately doesn’t have a very active role in the squad anymore because she just can’t move as well. Altair refuses to take her number though because he knows how important this is for her. Sarah and Micheal are petitioning for baby in the coming Season in a few weeks. Ehan has moved on from his crush on Muna. He still has the crush because he’s one of those ‘only in love with one person in your life’ sort of people, it just doesn’t bother him anymore and just likes the friendship he has with Muna. Sally is more confidant in herself and doesn’t rely so much on her sister to decide who she is as a person. Haytham’s gained a fuck ton of confidence and is flirting super hard with Ziio who is not interested at all and just thinks he’s ‘cute’.

Altair also has to deal with the fact that he’s got four kids and Sef will be starting levels this coming rollover and he’s so stressed out about it. He and Rauf are back to the way they were and he has a very cold relationship with Malik. He also spends a lot of time with his daughter. Like a _lot_ of time with her because he’s never had a daughter and now she’s old enough to be moved to the main nursery. Unlike with Sef and Darim he always worries that something is going to happen to her because she’s a girl even though he knows realistically she’s in no danger. He just worries. And that Malik will start saying shit to her because Malik also spends a lot of time with her as if to _spite him_.

This part of the story tho is mainly about Desmond and the rest of the proto humans. Yes, that is what they are called and where the story gets the name from. Proto humans are not any different than regular humans in any way other than that they are fertile and have the innate ability to sense people who, when put together, could create a good union even if their resonance isn’t well developed. They also share very high resonance with each other and always produce fertile children. They also unlock all _thirteen_ EVs while normal Assassins can unlock eleven.

The reason they have EV abilities is because originally the Assassin fortresses were situated over the laboratories they were created in to keep normal people and interfering government agencies away while they worked. The first Assassin fortress guarded the original facility that first developed the AWC that later led to child banks that allowed humanity to continue as a species even after the Collapse and the mass sterilization of both sexes through a means people still aren’t quite sure about.

After the Collapse the people responsible for the AWC and the salvation of the human race split off into other facilities around the world. One for each major land mass to genetically create a human from _before_ the sterilization. This proved incredibly difficult because most DNA they had available was tainted, even old DNA showed signs of being tainted. Atop or near each facility a fortress was constructed to protect them and to allow for the scientists to keep an eye on their subjects as they grew. When they realized how long term this project would be the scientists also decided to help their chances along by having AWCs use a modified solution while ‘processing’ an embryo into a child that would change some of their brain receptor to understand when they had found a ‘match’ that would more likely lead to fertile children. This sense began as very faint and non existence in most of the population and over the generations has developed into what is commonly referred to as resonance. Resonance does not differentiate between genders. It was simply a mechanism used to make sure people sure as shit understand ‘this person has good genes. You should try to make babies with them’. Since an AWC doesn’t need a male and female to make children it meant that any genetically compatible couples would do.

In fortresses and in the science facilities all AWC also contained a fluid that, along with resonance, contained nanites that would physically alter the child inside it, enhancing the senses and awareness and even physical strength and all abilities including being able to see and hear electronic and natural frequencies humans cannot usually perceive. This gave rise to the EVs and their many uses.

Of course over the years it was forgotten what the fortresses were originally for and people did attack them for their highly militarized presence and their genetically modified and altered humans which people lashed out about. The fortress was also usually kept in the dark about what their actual purpose was except for the highest members of the fortress. Fortresses were eventually destroyed and then rebuilt in other places and when their primary function was forgotten they built new fortresses in places other than where facilities were.

Desmond, Lucy, Clay, Leila, Danial, and Hannah, are all the product of these scientific breakthroughs and the first of their kind. The first test to make sure this shit _actually works_. If they succeeded in why they were created more would be made to further help diversify the gene pool for fertile humans. They are known as proto humans because they mimic the type of humans before chemicals we use in food and environmental poisoning began to taint humans and began the mass sterilization of humanity. Made one to each facility at approximately the same time they’re all, more or less, the same age and have been told their _entire lives_ that somewhere, out there in the world, there is someone born specifically for them. Literally. They all have incredibly high resonance with each other but have perfect resonance between pairs of each other. Because they were born in a science facility they all also have EVs and unlike in the fortresses where the nanites only work as well as their genetics (which is why some people can access more EVs while others can’t and why the Assassins breed with as high resonance as they possibly can to give their agents access to more EVs) the nanites in them give them full access to all 13 types of EVs because they are genetically ‘perfect’ humans.

Stuck in AC mythos all these proto humans are white except Leila (who’s Chinese) but I really fucking wanted them to actually display the genetic phenotype of where their facility was located. So Clay would have been latin american (brown), and Hannah african (black), so only Lucy, Daniel and Desmond would have been ‘white’. This is partially one of the reasons I’m stopping this fic cause the AC mythos just… makes everything so white and it botherssss meeeeeee.

So now there are two of these phs together with Clay and Desmond. They click instantly. While they were both told that others like them existed out there for the most part they were skeptical that they would ever actually _meet_ one of them, let alone the one they share perfect resonance with. With Desmond as a friend Clay is quickly assimilated into their level by the other kids and Tazim is mad jealous because Desmond is _his_ best friend. How dare Clay just show up and take over.

Unlike his dad (who’s a hot mess) Tazim actually knows how to deal with his feelings and talk things out. He goes to Desmond and tells him he doesn’t like how he’s suddenly been replaced by Clay when Desmond doesn’t even _know_ him and how would Desmond feel if people left Desmond high and dry.

Oddly enough it’s something Desmond can really relate to and he realizes he’s been doing the same thing to Tazim that his ‘dads’ have been doing to him. Not on purpose but Altair has just been really focused on his actual children. Desmond was never formally adopted like Muna did with Si’u so he doesn’t actually have parents, he just hangs out with Altair and Rauf a lot and they give him the love and affection as if he was their son. But with Sef starting levels soon and the new baby Altair and Rauf haven’t had as much time for him and while it isn’t negligence because they don’t actually have a hand in his day to day life they have been ignoring him and his needs for their actual biological children. Realizing- pretty wisely for a 14 yr old- he’s been doing the same to Tazim he apologizes for being a butthead (Tazim still doesn’t understand what a butthead actually is and Desmond uses a lot of slang he just… doesn’t get) and introduces him to Clay so they can all hang out and tells Clay they shouldn’t talk in their native language around Tazim so he doesn’t feel excluded unless it’s about Secret Home Things.

The three are a fucking menace and Clay very quickly develops a super hard crush on Desmond. Mainly because he’s the only other ph he’s ever seen and like he _knows_ he and Desmond aren’t ‘supposed’ to go together and they both have someone else out there meant for them but he figures Desmond is as close as he’ll ever get to it. Desmond’s also Desmond and super nice and fun to be around and is just a good kid that does what he can to make sure Clay doesn’t feel excluded from their level or the other kids.

On the other side of the world Cain’s having his own issues. Mainly that he’s still in the god damn fortress but finally his complacency has paid off. He’s allowed to go about unwatched in the fortress. Daniel is still a little shit and while Cain has been _very_ clear that he’s to obey all the rules he only does so out of spite. Just to spite everyone else he’s better at everything than any of the other kids in his level, including at fighting, even better than the girls and Australian boys are traditionally not as good fighters as girls. He’s got basically no friends and his level has serious contempt for him and the two other boys in his level secretly admire him for being so amazing and showing everyone that just because they’re often not as healthy doesn’t mean they’re not as good as girls in other ways. The two boys in Daniel’s level help him a lot in things and Daniel is very aware that they have crushes on him but he’s so entirely not interested in them because 1. They’re crazy Australians, and 2. They aren’t his match and Daniel is _obsessed_ with finding his match.

Because Cain can now move around the fortress without being stopped for the most part he’s made friends with some supports. Mainly some lady supports. And by friends I’m mean he’s banged them to get at their access cards that get them down into the support/Core area. Not an easy feat but not super difficult once he found the right person since women don’t see men as a threat or as having ulterior motives for sleeping with them since yeah, you should wanna sleep with me I’m hot af and will def treat you right. Cain doesn’t even give a fuck he just figured out how to get a key card which acts as a lower level of entry instead of thumb prints so just in case the thumb print reader is acting up you can still get into some parts of the lower support area.

Cain takes Daniel down to the support area but they don’t get to stay long enough for Daniel to do more than just try and figure out how to work the EV holographic interface since it works like nothing else in the fortress. They have to come back several more times before Daniel finally figures it out and sends basically a huge stream of spam SOSs at the asian and american fortresses and to send some fucking help because he’s one of the kids they’re looking for and the Australians have been holding him (and Cain) hostage for 3 years.

That gets the fortress’ attention and Cain and Daniel ditch out but Omega finds out and throws them into the ‘dungeon’ again with the white padded rooms for punishment. Tiamat is _furious_ and tries to play it off to Mario and the Singapore Mentor who’s name escapes me atm. The Asian Mentor is done with Tiamat and is just like ‘you absolute piece of garbage. We thought you were dead. Fuck you don’t call me again. Blocked, unfollowed, unsubbed.’ Mario is far more concerned and while he’s acting all worried (and pissed) that Tiamat hid the continued existence of the Australian fortress for so long he’s also basically sending Alpha and Beta out to deal with it personally and talking with the Asian Mentor about the entire situation.

Altair, the rest of Alpha and all of Beta arrive at the location of the Australian fortress within the next few days. The Australians _really_ don’t want to let them in because they’re complete isolationists but Altair just goes, ‘Chris, open the door please.’ ‘You want me to blow up Assassin property?’ ‘Far as I’m concerned, they’re the enemy right now. Do it.’ So Chris blows the door open and they get into the fortress and past the surface thanks to Mira being able to interface and hack into it.

Of course they’re met by part of Omega and the women leaders of Omega have _zero_ respect for the men in Alpha or Beta and in fact will only speak to Kanwai or the twins at first because _a man in charge_? They know society is stupid and let men lead but they figured their Assassin brethren would know better. There is a lot of hostility between the two groups before finally Alpha and Beta are allowed inside the fortress properly and are taken to see the Mentor.

Tiamat is… well she’s Tiamat. Meaning she’s a reaaaaaal bitch. She denies everything about Cain and Daniel from their existence to their whereabouts. Altair and Faiz (B-1, remember) just like… side eye each other and go ‘okay. We believe you, but do you mind if we look around anyway? Just so our Mentor has some peace of mind?’ Tiamat allows it. Faiz and the other Betas cause a real ruckus that disrupts a good deal of the fortress cause wtf is up with these guys with their huge fucking helmet bashing each other in the head with them? This isn’t how men are supposed to act and other various sexist things. Some of Alpha get into it too and Omega is completely distracted so some members of Alpha can slip away.

Mainly those are the women. Mira, Kanwai, and Ziio book it down to the Core where Mira hacks her way _through_ the support area straight to the Core and is like ‘don’t mind me while I just plug in real quuuuick’. She finds Cain and Daniel in holding and just as Omega is starting to realize their gone as their own Core Programmers are _flipping out in a panic_ at this unknown entity accessing their fortress. Kanwai radios back to the rest of Alpha and now that the Omega guarding them are fully distracted some of the others get out like Jari, Altair, and Haytham who can like… actually stealth out. Diyari doesn’t because he’s busy playing the easily distressed medic worrying about his squad mates and Sally is being ‘the reasonable twin’ and attempting to stop her sister from acting like a fool. Sarah, Chris, Ehan and Muna all stay because they’re CAUSING A SCENE with Beta.

So the three of them get down to the fortress dungeons and meet up with the other girls and Mira hacks her way into the dungeon and they find Cain and Daniel in the same cell. If nothing else the Australians learned not to separate them in holding because they don’t want a repeat of Daniel starving himself to make a point.

Cain is very confused and pretty scared when they show up because Alpha and Omega suits look very similar until they clear their helmets so he can see inside that there are men under them cause he sure as shit doesn’t trust women in battle armor at this point. They get the ‘we’re here to rescue you’ speech and Alpha helps the two out of the cell.

There’s some real shit to get Daniel and Cain out of the fortress without being seen. It’s mainly thanks to Jari and Mira that they manage it since Mira stays behind to hook into a terminal in the dungeons to block them from being tracked and Jari uses his very well developed echolocation to keep them out of sight of Omega. Omega now realizes that they’re gone and is actively searching for them but the Core Programmers are running a little blind. They’ve never had to combat a hacker that is also an Assassin and is Core Programer level good at it and can write code at the speed of thought because she’s a fucking maniac. They can’t see where they are since Mira has blacked out where they actually are as well as other places around the fortress to throw up red flags, even making the red herring black out area ‘travel’ like they’re keeping up with Alpha.

After more than a few close calls they get Cain and Daniel out of the fortress and Cain literally cries in happiness at being above ground again and being able to see the sky and feel the sun and wind and actual earth under his feet. Altair grabs him because they don’t have time for this they _gotta go_ and… oops. Turns out they have perfect resonance and Altair _freaks_ the fuck out because nope nope nope he isn’t dealing with this shit again. Bad enough his level of resonance with Malik caused the Sad Thing to happen he is not suffering that shit again just because he’s got perfect resonance with someone. He’s learned the lesson well. Cain is just awestruck because his _entire life_ he’s never resonated with anyone but suddenly there’s this dude from across the planet who he doesn’t just resonate with but _really_ resonates with. Altair orders someone else grab Cain and they book it back to one of their two helis and take off. As they do Altair tells Faiz to get Beta and the rest of Alpha the _fuck_ out of there because they have the hostages.

The way back to America Cain _really_ wants to talk to Altair but Altair tells Kanwai, ‘deal with this for me. I’m not’ so she answers his questions instead though she can’t answer him about the resonance since she has no idea.

So the reason Altair and Cain resonate is because their parents also had perfect resonance meaning that their parents were both the culmination of some crazy lucky breeding that made it so they were _both_ fertile. The more fertile you are the more you resonate with equally fertile people to eventually make lots of fertile babies so humanity no longer has to rely on AWCs to make babies. So Altair and Cain resonate because they’re both fertile (but they don’t know that since resonance has more social implications and is seen as soul matey) and the people Altair resonates with back at St. Adams (tho not as strongly as with Cain) is just his resonance going ‘hey, these guys aren’t fertile but you’d have a REALLY good chance of having fertile kids if you made babies. So MAKE BABIES YOU PiECE OF SHIT’.

The fallout of the Australian fortress raid is basically the St. Adams and Singapore Assassins ganging up on them like ‘what the _actual_ fuck is the matter with you? Why didn’t you ever call for help?’ and more or less kicking the Australian fortress’ collective ass. Tiamat does admit it… got out of hand and consents to people from St. Adams and Singapore to be deployed to their fortress to get them back on track for how Assassins should be. The only stipulation is that the people can only be women because her people wouldn’t respect a man even if she told them to. So both other fortresses send a few high ranked ladies to the Australian fortress to help them get their fucking act together and stop being so fucking insane. That’s the end of the Australian arc as far as I imagined it and other than Altair’s existential crisis I didn’t really have anything super in depth planned for him and Cain. Mainly because Cain was a relatively recent development as far as the story goes. Cain probably stays at the Sr. Adams fortress tho because it’s been 3 years since he was kidnapped so wtf is left for him in Australia. Also Altair is there and even if Altair doesn’t want a sexual relationship with him you better fucking believe he wants to be friends with Altair.

So now the St. Adams fortress has all three boy proto humans and Mario knows that there are six proto humans total (as do every other fortress since the signal was initially broadcast from the science facilities to their fortresses but it got intercepted by other organizations from around the world). Daniel is _psyched_ to meet Clay and Desmond and then immediately loses interest in them when he realizes they aren’t his match. Mario also doesn’t think to ask if Singapore has another one and the Singapore Assassins are by far the least active in this whole proto human thing. They just wanted Leila because they didn’t want the GoL to have her but really the Mentor isn’t too concerned with them. So Leila goes unknown to the St. Adams Assassins for now.

Now, other, other, side of the world Lucy is still a captive of the Templars under Haytham. The Templars actually know a lot of shit about the Assassins and know how to catch some of their broadcasts. Like… the one Daniel sent out. They arrive in Australia too late to capitalize on the situation and Haytham is HELLA PISSED about it because Lucy is like, the perfect protégé and how great would it have been if he had another. So he just continues training Lucy and keeping an open eye and ear for the others since he only knows the whereabouts of Lucy and that the Australian proto human was taken by the American Assassins but has nooooo idea where that fortress is. Lucy herself is just biding her time for when she can get out from under Haytham’s thumb. Despite that she is bonded with him because it proves her best chance of survival.

So proto humans also do this thing where they bond with an adult person. It isn’t anything creepy it’s just that they came into the world at 11 and need a surrogate parent to take care of them. And like how Altair said there are different types of resonance this is true for bonding. It’s a type of platonic resonance that basically makes the adult _care_ more for their ‘adopted child’ than they might normally. It’s like a baby duckling effect as well and a proto human will not switch bonding unless their original bonded adult dies, or is otherwise seen as so unfit that they switch as a means of self preservation. Desmond bonded with Altair, Clay to Leo, Daniel to Cain, and Leila to Wei Ning (who was murdered) so she switches to Jun. Hannah I don’t have an adult for yet and Lucy was originally bonded with Warren before Haytham told her how terrible he was and as a means of self preservation bonded with Haytham instead. This also made sure that Haytham would be more understanding of her needs and not such a fucking gigantic prick like he was originally. She still hates him and hates that she’s bonded with him but does so out of survival.

Despite Desmond being bonded with Altair he’s been feeling pretty neglected lately by Altair. It’s compounded when he first meets Clay and Leo and sees just how fucking doting and affectionate Leo is on Clay and then months later with Cain and Daniel and just the care Cain takes with Daniel even though he’s the grumpiest little shit imaginable. Like Daniel literally only smiles when he’s around Cain, otherwise he’s a grumpy fuck. To be fair Altair has had a _lot_ to deal with between Alpha, his youngest son starting levels, a three year old he wants to spend time with (and avoiding Malik while doing so), spending time with Rauf, and seeing Darim when he can along with general fucking life shit he’s spread pretty thin and it doesn’t leave a lot of time for him to just be with Desmond. Desmond does have his friends and his level (which is basically like family) but he misses being with Altair.

He doesn’t get depressed but it’s a bummer and when his friends all leave their level room to go be with their parents he’s one of the three left back in their level room because Altair’s usually busy. Clay and Daniel are in the same boat as him yet they both have father figures to go hang out with and he doesn’t.

To not be so bummed about when his friends aren’t around he usually ends up exploring by himself. Ends up getting lost in one of the storage levels. Like actually lost because the storage levels are like a warehouse maze. He is found eventually by one of the Core Programmers, who knows what he is and why he’s important to the Mentor, named Serenity. She asks him if he’s lost and he says he isn’t sure, he just wants to not be where he was. They end up talking and Serenity ends up guiding Desmond back to the elevator, Desmond now much happier than he was when she found him. The next time he has some ‘off’ time he goes right back there and Serenity again finds him and asks him what he’s doing there and he responds, ‘well this is the only place I know where to find you.’ She tells him she can see him just about everywhere he goes and he doesn’t have to go somewhere specific to speak to her.

This goes on for a several weeks, during which Alpha runs normal missions and Desmond only gets to see Altair a few times. He gets to see Rauf more often and while he loves Rauf he’s _not_ Altair. Because Serenity has full control over the fortress including the windows, and sim rooms when she sees Desmond looks sad or lonely her avatar pops up in the nearest window like ‘do you want to play?’ They usually end up playing in the sim room and as Desmond’s friends return from seeing their parents she casually hacks their PMs to make it look like Desmond sent them a message telling them to come hang out in a sim room.

Then one day Desmond is hanging out while most of his friends are gone and he’s really just waiting for Serenity to show up to play with him when a woman comes up to him and goes ‘hello, Desmond. Do you want to play?’ in Serenity’s voice. Desmond is SUPER happy to meet his play mate for real and she finally introduces herself as Kaley. They end up just talking in real life. She also tells Desmond why she grew fond of him, because he reminds her of her own son who’s gone on pilgrimage recently and she misses him. That kinda bums Desmond out because why do the adults he attaches himself to ALREADY have kids? He just wants what Clay and Daniel have with their ‘dad’. But one kid is better odds of being paid attention to than against three like Altair.

While Desmond doesn’t rebond with Kaley he does hang out with her a lot both as Kaley and as Serenity. Like to the point Altair actually notices and asks what he’s doing and when he tells Altair he gets this real confused look on his face. Because Assassin or not Desmond is 14 and some random adult shouldn’t be showing this much attention or ‘play’ with his kid without him knowing who the fuck they are and he has nooooo idea who Kaley is. So Altair meets Kaley and she’s a few years older than him and Rauf says he recognizes the name of her son. He was very gifted but also _really_ wasn’t about the Assassin life and worries about him returning home to the fortress. That is literally Altair’s #1 fear when Darim goes out on his pilgrimage in another year so even tho Altair only knows Kaley as a voice in his helmet as Serenity when needed they basically bond immediately as being worry wart parents because their children are so important to them. Should be noted, Altair and Kaley do not have strong resonance. Like there is some but it’s pretty low and nothing even distraction worthy like Altair’s with Rauf, Malik, or Cain.

Daniel really doesn’t want to stay in the fortress despite it being way nicer than the Australian one. He’s always asking to go outside to so he can find his match because Des and Clay are cool but he doesn’t want them. Cain has to basically sit him down like, ‘you’re 14 years old with no special skills or understanding of how the _actual_ world works outside of these crazy fortresses. You need to grow up a little bit before you can leave because if you leave I’m not going with you.’ Which actually gives Daniel pause because he doesn’t want to just leave Cain so he agrees he’ll stay but only because Cain is there and he makes sure everyone fucking knows he isn’t here for this Assassin shit. He’s just staying until he’s old enough to be taken seriously by society at large.

With Altair and Malik shit Malik was literally made to feel as sorry as humanly possible for what he did during the Sad Part and he’s also MAD bitter about it because he still… kinda likes Altair. So there’s just a lot of bullshit pining he can’t act on because Altair is still very much in love with Rauf. He does try to be nice to Altair and like is actually not malicious about his time with Sawsan but Altair is just like ‘don’t talk to me. Don’t look at me. Don’t even breathe the same air as me.’ Not in the way they were before where they’d sometimes devolve into fist fights but just absolute coldness and Malik doesn’t have room to say shit cause he did this to himself and he knows it. So he’s just in pain instead but there’s nothing he can do because if he does fucking _anything_ Rauf is gonna ruin his life without ever even touching him. Like no more rank, no more easy job, no more big room, no more privileged elevator access. Rauf will 100% use his status as a First Class Assassin to just fucking wreck Malik if he steps out of line with his Altair.

After this there’s like a 3 year time jump.

—

In St. Adams Darim has since gone on his pilgrimage, Sef is in third level and it’s a few months till rollover for Des, Clay, and Dan to go on their own pilgrimage. Kanwai isn’t an active member of Alpha anymore but Altair allows her to keep her number until his body shuts down. Chris mostly takes care of her and they really wanted to be joined but can’t because of Kanwai’s genetics. Rebecca is still trying to convince Mira to ditch Alpha. Diyari and Jari are both still fucking disgusting love birds who are even worse because they have a 5 yr old who basically has them wrapped around his little finger. Altair isn’t so cold to Malik as he once was but their relationship is tenuous at best because of what happened.

Daniel is fucking fed up though. Like he’s done waiting and he doesn’t give a shit about the Assassins or their pilgrimage. He literally ‘escapes’ with some cash and Mario almost has him retrieved but Altair talks him out of it since they were going to use Ziio to do it since she’s one of if not the best tracker the Assassins have. He’s mainly speaking on Cain’s behalf but since Cain is a civi Mario doesn’t really give a shit about what he thinks. Altair convinces Mario to just let him go. He’ll either come back or he won’t. Either way he’s still got a deadman chip and a beacon so they can retrieve him if anything goes wrong.

Outside of the fortress Daniel immediately gets on a plane for Europe. He knows that Desmond and Clay are the American proto humans and he’s the Australian one that means that his match has to be in Eurasia or Africa. Europe is closer so he starts his search there. Then it’s a series of Daniel’s misadventures of being a kid in a world where children are totally coddled and everyone speaks down to him and he tries to get things done and it is just inconvenience after inconvenience.

At this same time Lucy’s finally finished most of her training with Haytham. Because she’s been with the Templars for so many years since she was a kid she’s kinda a little brain washed and indoctrinated. She still hates Haytham even though he basically treats her like his daughter but she respects him a great deal. She is very skilled in basically everything and since she came to Haytham with a head full of knowledge to begin with he didn’t do the Assassin thing where he made her learn things she already knew. As such Lucy is incredibly intelligent, Haytham admits probably even more intelligent than he is, and with her cold stare when he says something annoying to her he is always fondly reminded that she promised to murder him. He thinks it’s rather adorable because she might be smarter than him but she isn’t as crafty, or as good a fighter. Not yet. She needs more years for that.

Haytham’s been getting little reports now and then from his agents around western Europe of a boy asking strange questions. Not exactly bad, just odd and they’re supposed to report all oddities to Haytham since he knows the others like Lucy (who he doesn’t know the full extent of the proto humans) are out there actively looking for each other. And they’re finally coming of age to leave whatever holes they’d crawled into. Haytham orders this boy brought in, just to see what he is. They ‘arrest’ Daniel for some minor offense and use that as an excuse to bring him into the Abstergo facility in Paris. Haytham has Lucy outside the interrogation room and asks Lucy, ‘so, what do you feel?’ When she reports that she actually _does_ feel something from his proximity it takes her a moment to realize what she actually just said and gets VERY excited.

Haytham questions Daniel first before allowing Lucy near him but she literally just paces waiting for him to be done. For himself Daniel doesn’t say much. Then Haytham lets Lucy inside and she practically jumps on poor Daniel to test out their resonance. Like she thought he’s another proto human and Daniel is SO surprised he doesn’t say anything. Then the first thing he says to Lucy, cause he’s an asshole, is ‘you’re not my match’ and becomes completely disinterested in her. That _infuriates_ Lucy and they have a very heated argument in their native language.

Also, note. Their native language is just our modern english but since PH takes place about 400 years in the future contemporary english of the time sounds VERY different and is more like Spanglish for the most part on the North American continent with weird german thrown in for good measure because when has english ever made sense? But the language of pre Collapse English was maintained in the science facilities that made the proto humans, and even accounting for linguistic drift it sounds shockingly like our modern english. That being said PH contemporary humans cannot understand proto human english because they just sound way too different.

So they have an argument and Daniel finally gets fed up and basically is like ‘I really don’t care about you because you’re not for me. But I literally know where the other two guys are if you want to go try that out. Now stop yelling at me I just want to find my match.’ This revelation that Daniel _knows_ where the other guys are is tremendous and Lucy tells Haytham right away and that they HAVE to go because she NEEDS to find her match too.

Haytham talks to Daniel again and he’s more agreeable to talk, mainly so Lucy will stop yelling at and jumping on him about everything. He doesn’t get Lucy and why she’s so thrilled. Lucy’s also been, basically, a captive the past six years. Her existence is a closely guarded secret and only her tutors and a few other peoples even know she exists. Daniel tells Lucy and Haytham that Desmond and Clay are in the Assassin fortress in St. Adams. It doesn’t even occur to him that Haytham and Lucy are Templars and he probably wouldn’t care anyway because he doesn’t give a fuck about the Assassins. That interests Haytham a great deal and it honestly doesn’t take a whole lot of convincing to make Daniel tell him where the fortress is. Of course he doesn’t know the address so Haytham makes a deal with Daniel. If Daniel gets him and his ‘daughter’ into the Assassin fortress he’ll give Daniel a tip on another proto human he heard about in south Africa and even buy him a plane ticket to get there. Daniel is fucking _sold_.

So Daniel returns to the fortress literally a week or so before Desmond and Clay are about to leave on their pilgrimages with Lucy and Haytham. The Assassins are MAD leery of Haytham but Daniel is like ‘Lucy’s like me and this is her… dad I guess.’ ‘Caretaker’ ‘whatever. They’re cool’. So the Assassins agree to let Lucy and Haytham into the fortress.

Like with most new people they are inspected head to toe and have x-rays taken and other scans so that the Assassins know that nothing is getting passed them. They both come up clean. Because Daniel’s still one of them he just freely moves about the fortress and goes and sees Clay and Desmond and tells them about Lucy. They both promptly flip out and give Dan their condolences that of them he wants to find his match the most and he even left home to go find her and just… hasn’t. He also stops by to see Cain who’s thrilled to see him.

Clay and Desmond _immediately_ show up at Rauf’s room, knowing Altair and Rauf are there and just mile a minute begging for them to meet the new arrivals to the fortress. The adults are just like ‘… uh… new arrivals, what?’ The two dumb dumbs manage to breathe long enough to explain what the hell they’re talking about and they have to very calmly talk the boys from from their excited foaming at the mouth. While they’re being checked in all new guests are quarantined for two days, which they should know because they both had to go through this. Once they’re out of quarantine Rauf will see about getting the boys over to the supposed proto human while she’s in less intense holding.

Also, should be noted. I call them proto humans in this but no one in story calls them proto humans. The proto humans refer to themselves as proto humans in their native english. The other characters don’t know what proto humans are or what these kids are other than ‘special’, not even why they’re special or why the Audi cares so much about protecting them.

Quarantine ends and Rauf pulls some strings and Desmond and Clay get to meet Lucy. Unlike her meeting with Daniel meeting Des and Clay is a lot more reserved because there are literally big scary Assassins around to make sure nothing bad happens. Lucy shakes Clay’s hand when she meets him and it’s like when she was around Daniel. High resonance, but not perfect. Then she and Desmond shake hands and it’s perfect. They both just start sobbing _immediately_ and everyone except Clay is surprised and don’t know what the hell to do because these 17 yr old kids are suddenly sobbing and hugging each other like they’re long lost best friends.

Unfortunately Desmond isn’t allowed to stay that long but he does refuse to move until Altair shows up like ‘wtf are you doing on the floor? Get the hell up. You’ll see her again so stop with the puppy eyes. God above.’ And Altair gets Desmond and Lucy apart.

There’s still a little bit of time of mainly needing to look into Haytham’s (impeccably fake) background and during those few days Clay has to be around Desmond who’s just on fucking cloud nine. Daniel resents him hard core and is only marginally happy for him. Clay isn’t because he realizes that since Desmond has Lucy, and Daniel was never like that, he’s alone. Like he’d been crushing hard on Desmond while they grew up and they’d kissed each other just to see what it was like but now that’s over. Clay quickly falls into a depressive spiral realizing the guy he thought he liked doesn’t like him and really he never liked Desmond as much as he thought he did. He just _wanted_ to like Desmond because he thought that that was the best he was ever going to get. He didn’t actually believe he was going to ever find his match. And then all at once Desmond found his and he’s happy for Desmond but he’s also sad and bitter and a little resentful of this fact.

Desmond notices when Clay starts to get distant from him over the days and asks him about it. Clay just plays it off but really he’s very upset and knowing his luck if he went out on his pilgrimage to go find his match he’d just end up finding Daniel’s instead or his match was dead or something. That just makes him even more sad and depressed. Then Lucy gets let out of holding with Haytham and literally the first thing she does when she sees Desmond is kiss him and it’s when she finds Desmond with his friends and Clay is just ‘I don’t wanna be here seeing this’. Daniel’s cranky about it and Tazim is honestly kinda stary eyed cause _wow_ Desmond is kissing a girl he’s kinda jelly lol. For a little while after that Desmond basically ignores everyone else to just talk to and spend time with Lucy and rollover is still approaching.

Clay realizes… Desmond won’t be going on his pilgrimage with Clay. Lucy can’t leave the fortress easily and no way Desmond is letting her stay here alone. Like he might spend a few weeks/months in St. Adams just to see how society works but not very long since his match is literally right here already. Des and Clay had planned to do their pilgrimage together to other continents to look for their match but now it looks like Clay will have to just go with Dan and ?????? that sounds awful to Clay because Daniel is a miserable asshole.

Leading up to rollover Clay becomes very depressed. Serenity notices that Clay isn’t with Desmond a lot now so checks in on him and one day finds him in one of the stairwells of the fortress. It’s the highest drop you can get in the fortress with dozens of floors between where Clay is and the ground. The stairwell also has a big enough hole in the middle to drop through. She isn’t sure at first but watches Clay keep leaning over the railing like he’s trying to talk himself into it and out of it and Serenity can’t understand what he’s saying to himself because it’s in his native english. Serenity _immediately_ contacts Altair who’s fucking fucking relaxing in Rauf’s apartment with Sawsan and is like ‘ALTAIR GET YOUR ASS UP RIGHT NOW THERE IS AN EMERGENCY’. Which, understandably, freaks Altair the fuck out cause wtf Serenity what is your DEAL?

Serenity gives him the brief and he immediately contacts just a few of his squad. Mainly the twins, diyari and Ehan and tell them to meet him up where Clay is still trying to talk himself into or out of jumping and that Diyari should bring his first aid kit _just in case_. They all meet up on the door outside the landing Clay is at and form a ‘plan of attack’. Altair has the twins go down a level each so just in case he does jump they can grab him before he falls too far. Altair will go in first because Clay knows Altair the best and Ehan will come in while he’s got Clay distracted and grab him. Like Altair literally brought Ehan because he’s a brick shit house and can hold a tough lil guy like Clay still and the twins because they have lightning fast reaction times and Diyari to make sure if anyone gets hurt they can be patched up and give general medical treatment if needed.

So Altair goes onto the landing with Clay and Clay’s so shocked Altair’s there. Altair convinces him to step away from the railing and positions him back to the door so when Ehan comes in Clay can’t see him. Ehan snatches Clay up and Clay freaks out and thrashes some as Ehan bodily carries him back into the fortress hallway where Diyari was waiting. When Altair follows, after telling the twins Clay is safe, Ehan has a bloody nose from Clay smashing the back of his head into Ehan’s face and Diyari is trying to calm Clay down. Altair tells Ehan to let Clay go and he’s just trembling and scared and upset and now feels terrible because he fucked up Ehan’s nose and caused a scene that was so serious _Alpha_ had to show up to deal with him.

While Diyari deals with Ehan’s bloody face Altair goes off with Clay and they talk about some stuff like why he’s so upset and he breaks down and tells Altair _a lot_ about the proto humans and how he’s happy Desmond found his match but that just makes it seem like the odds of Clay finding his by himself so much more unlikely. Altair only understands so much because it’s a lot to take in, especially while being told by a sobbing teenager (who are the ugliest criers known to man) and eventually just tells his squad they did good and that he’s going to take Clay to Leo.

Leo is like… a god send. He’s in his workshop when Altair shows up with his blubbering, depressed, son and Leo is just ‘omg why didn’t you tell me you were sad ;A;’ and takes over from Altair and gets Clay to calm down. Altair leaves Clay with Leo and now he’s got all this shit in his head about proto humans and goes to look for his and finds Desmond totally cuddling with his new girlfriend and Altair’s like ‘yeah, I can understand why you’d be jealous of that’ and pulls Desmond aside. He tells Desmond the very basics about what happened with Clay and Desmond is surprised and shocked because he had no idea and then Altair asks Desmond about what Clay was rambling about about proto humans and Desmond is just like ‘… I’m not supposed to talk about. We’re not supposed to tell anyone’. Which just makes Altair kinda pissed off cause Clay almost killed himself because of the shit you kids are and if it’s an issue the Assassins deserve to know.

So Desmond tells Altair the full shit about proto humans and why they were made and what they were supposed to prove and if they succeeded the facilities were going to start making _more_ proto humans. Resonance doesn’t work quickly and it’s been so long that only now are people starting to show any strong resonance and only in Assassin fortresses is there actually really not a thing most people ever experience as anything other than static. Proto humans are supposed to be the answer to the issue humanity faces on their sterility and while the first six were made in pairs with matches that was just so they knew for sure that the proto humans worked with the whole bonding thing and that they could survive above ground and wouldn’t accidentally introduce unwanted germs to people and they themselves wouldn’t get deathly ill from humanity’s germs. And Altair is just like ‘o______o that’s some shit right there Des’ and doesn’t really fully understand it and his brain is basically full of fuck. Desmond is like ‘maybe you wanna take a minute to think about it? You look like you’re having an existential crisis’ because Desmond had also explained to Altair was the _real_ point of resonance is.

Altair goes back to his room and just kinda… veggies out and Rauf finds him and he’s so fucking weird because now he knows shit and now lots of things are both great and awful because he knows shit. Like now he knows that the reason he feels resonance for Rauf isn’t because they’re soul mates it’s because science and genetics says that they have a much higher chance of producing fertile offspring. It also explains why Rauf has so much resonance with other people, because he’s a bit higher than average and it pings off a lot of higher than average but not high enough genetics going ‘he’s the best you can do without dragging your kid down. Have kids with him’. And his resonance with Rauf is only because Rauf is high enough for Altair’s perfect genetics to notice. Same with Malik while Cain is like Altair and has perfect reproductive genetics. Like this doesn’t make Altair love Rauf any less but it totally destroys the magical illusion resonance has and makes him feel shitty because now his stupid excuse during the Sad Part is evEN WORSE and more of a lack of self control than anything. Altair doesn’t tell Rauf any of this and they just end up cuddling for a while.

Rollover happens and everyone except Clay goes out on their pilgrimage. Even Desmond though he promises to be back really soon to get back to Lucy. Clay is held back for his depression and the Assassins aren’t going to let him go until he shows some signs of recovery because they don’t want him committing suicide out in society where they aren’t able to help him because of distance. When Desmond leaves he asks Lucy to make friends with Clay so he doesn’t feel so lonely. Not a hard thing since Lucy is thirsty for friendship but it takes a while for Clay to warm up to her because she’s Desmond’s match. He does though because he also wants a friend with Desmond and Tazim gone.

‘But bb, _Haytham_??????’ Yeah. One of the leaders of the Templar Order… in the St. Adams Assassin fortress. The Assassin’s also find out that he’s got strong genetics from the destroyed European fortress and after digging around in his genetics realizes he’s actually from there. It goes a long way to making the Assassins trust him since they see him as one of their own, long lost and returned to them. Haytham plays to that to a T to appear as sympathetic as possible to others and very quickly shakes off people watching him because he just acts like one of them and can even name his parents and grandparents who were Assassins. While he doesn’t have unrestricted access to the fortress he does have very wide access but can’t go below below floor 29 or above floor 65. That’s still a lot of space and he goes snooping and looking for weaknesses in the fortress.

He also makes friends with people so it looks like he’s assimilating into the fortress. The fortress also wants to use him for his genetics and is like ‘hey, would you mind if we asked you to share some of your genetic material?’ and Haytham, knowing it won’t matter because he’s going to have this place fucking destroyed is like ‘yeah sure’ specifically so he can make them trust him _even more_. Turns out he’s got pretty high resonance with Ziio so they go to Ziio like ‘you’re being joined this Season with this European’ and she’s SO FUCKING INSULTED. Like Alpha Haytham Barret finally convinced her to think of him as more than her ‘cute little brother’ by just being an actual nice human being and letting her come to the conclusion on her own and now she’s being forced to join with this _old dude_? One she doesn’t even know. It’s even worse because they have the same name and she’s just pissy about it but like with Altair and Malik five years ago she has no choice. Barret is like just one huge frowny face especially when Kenway starts flirting with _his_ girl. Kenway literally does it just to be a huge prick because he doesn’t give a fuck about these people and just wants them to trust him and he plays it off as he might as well get to know Ziio if they’re gonna be having a kid. Ziio is not having it, at all. Barret also hates Kenway with a passion because go fuck yourself dude and in general Alpha now doesn’t like Kenway because (even tho it isn’t his fault at all. He just happened to have good resonance with Ziio) he’s trying to get in the middle of Ziio and Barret when Haytham’s been crushing on Ziio for _years_.

Also, side note. Sarah and Micheal have a 2 yr old. Not named Micheal jr. Idk what his name is. Just throwing it out there for the Hart shippers lols.

This goes on for months as Haytham collects data on the fortress and slyly tucks it away for later use. The one day he’s just… gone. He got permission to leave the fortress because he missed the sky and then they don’t hear from him for hours, a day, two days. The fortress starts to get VERY nervous and its basically put on lock down. Doesn’t matter or do much good. The Templars know where they are and the weaknesses of their fortress. The fortress doesn’t know it was the Templars tho until Lucy gets too stressed out by the entire thing because she knows Desmond will be coming back soon and she doesn’t want him to get hurt. Before he left Haytham told her to continue acting as she had been and to make sure people didn’t notice anything fishy. She’s an 18 yr old girl and now her ‘dad’ is gone and she’s under a lot of stress but breaks within a few days because Haytham is going to rain hell on this place. It doesn’t help that Clay is also gone at this point because he’s better than he was and they weren’t scared of him committing suicide anymore so she’s _alone_. She doesn’t know who to go to so goes to Desmond’s ‘dad’ and just confesses to him. She tells him about who she is and Haytham and how they met Daniel and what Haytham was doing here and where he went.

This, rightly, makes Altair bolt up to the Audi to tell him what he’s just heard and Mario calls for a full fortress evacuation. They know what Templars did last time they found out about a fortress. They found the european fortress and blew it up with a huge explosion and didn’t even care about the suburban area around it. They were worried about destroying the Assassins and that was it.

The fortress goes into full evac mode but they don’t start sending people out quite yet because if they started moving people out in mass the Templars would notice and attack immediately and not when they’d prepared. They also learned from the attack on the European fortress and after it fell had long tunnels dig that would take them out of the fortress and up to the surface a, hopefully, safer distance away.

Of course nothing goes as well as you’d hope it does. They’re still organizing to get all the non assassins out of there along with their own people when there’s an attack on the above ground building and it gets toppled. Thankfully not a lot of people die because they ‘closed the bank’ for a while and no one except a few people were in the building. The Templars use the wreckage to hide an even _bigger_ bomb that will crack through the protective bulkhead and allow them down into the fortress itself. The initial explosion sends about half the fortress into a panic. That half being the non Assassin civilians that live and work there and the novices who have no idea what’s going on and are panicking. The adult Assassins quickly start organizing themselves and their kids to get them the fuck out. Going up top through the heli pad is completely impossible so they start evacuating through the tunnels.

All of Foxtrot is tasked with evacuating the fortress while Alpha-Delta (also this doesn’t have anything to do with anything but I literally just had the epiphany that Foxtrot _should_ be called Echo and not Foxtrot because what is the alphabet) are given the task of keeping the Templars _out_ of their home to allow everyone to evacuate. They set up in the armory which is so high in the fortress for the exact reason that in case of a breach all the weapons they could ever want are at their disposal since all enemies have to come from the top down.

The Templars come with guns and more bombs and other horrible weapons that they basically save specifically for when they’re fighting Assassins because they know how hard Assassins are to kill. Alpha-Delta hold that line and they do so _for hours_ as a seemingly endless amount of Templars come at them including many in those state of the art suits they first encountered back in Marcusville _years_ ago. It’s also discovered very early on that many of the things they’re killing aren’t even humans. They’re robot soldiers more advanced than any the world has seen yet. Alpha-Delta are there for hours as their people get evacuated and only a few of them fall.

They do… miss a few. Some sneaky ones get through in the chaos and there’s only Rebecca manning the Core down there and she can only see so much. She misses them and they get down to the lower levels somehow with a bomb. The bomb goes off even as members of Foxtrot find them and destroy them and the entire fortress… cracks and shifts.

Now it’s a race to get out. Alpha-Delta abandon their posts because now that the fortress is cracked evacuation is more important than anything and with a larger hole to shoot through the Templars have brought in big guns mounted on hover jets to further chip away at the fortress and eradicate them. Meanwhile those being evacuated are starting to spill out onto the surface elsewhere but the Templars have cast a wide net to make sure they catch the vermin. As people leave the tunnels they’re shot or otherwise killed and Templars storm the buildings the tunnels are connected to. They are beat back by the Assassins because even their children know how to fight better than most Templars but a lot end up dead as they run for their lives.

Alpha is doing a final sweep of the lower levels of the fortress while this is going on, making sure everyone is out from the techs to the supports to doctors and every single novice. They meet up with the rest of the First Classes who have been staying down there to make sure everyone has gotten out and will be the last to leave with Alpha-Delta. All this in a chaos of Templars storming the place and attempting to kill any stragglers, which there are some. Altair is doing a last sweep through the novice halls just to _make sure_ when he finds the body of a novice and he’s really upset about it until he turns them over and _it’s Sef_.

Rauf, after waiting for Altair and him not coming back for a long enough time that he gets anxious, goes and looks for Altair and finds him in the novice halls thanks to Mira. Altair hasn’t moved from where he found Sef and Rauf goes over to him and sees it too and Altair is just crying in his helmet but doesn’t let Rauf comfort him because he’s just _angry_. And then some very good anger relief shows up as some Templars come around. Altair tells Rauf to get their son’s body out of there. For the very first time an Assassin does what a proto human can do. EVs have 13 permutations but they require the best genetics to access so most Assassins can only ever cap out with 11. Because proto humans do have the best genetics they have all 13 and Altair does too. The last two EVs literally make people stronger, and faster (remember in the chapter we first met Lucy and she kicked the ever loving _shit_ out of Haytham, moving faster and with more power than an 11 year old has any right to? Yeah. That was foreshadowing) but since Altair’s never had a use for those because he 1. didn’t know he had them, and 2. hadn’t gone through a great enough strain while through puberty to access them. Now he does.

Altair rips through the Templars, leaving Rauf to escape with Sef’s body. Only after Altair has finished killing an absurd amount of people is he able to calm down enough to get the hell out and he’s one of the last to escape and seals the escape tunnel after him just like the other tunnels were sealed. He comes up to more carnage by the time he’s there he’s had time to recover from his rampage from Sef and helps push the Templars back with his superior speed and strength. The last group huddled in the bunker escape and scatter. Altair almost dies before escaping because he’s just so fucking furious that these Templars murdered his son.

Altair ditches and sabotages his Alpha suit and manages to make it to a safe house far outside St. Adams. He’s really hurt and has a few bullet holes. Nothing he won’t heal from but he’s really fucked up and exhausted. He makes it to the safe house and promptly collapses amid some other Assassins. When he comes to his wounds are being tended to, by, of all fucking people, Malik. The safe house he stumbled into basically has Malik and a bunch of novices in it who are all terrified and clinging to Malik because he’s the only adult there. Malik also has Sawsan with him and Altair basically cracks a joke like ‘well at least you’re smart enough to keep her safe’, ‘if you’re well enough to sass me you’re well enough to sit up. Now get it together’.

Sawsan is really happy to see her other father and Altair is still kinda in shut down mode after what happened and seeing he’s not in any mortal danger Malik leaves him be to decompress. Altair’s body isn’t used to how stressful the 12/13th EV is on it and he’s just super exhausted and ends up just cuddling his daughter before his mind goes to what the hell happened and then Sef and he starts crying again. Malik leaves him alone cause he has no idea what happened he just knows that his _own_ son is safe because Tazim is on his pilgrimage. Thankfully Darim and Desmond are too so Altair doesn’t have to worry about them as much.

They spend a while at the safe house. Malik has to do most things involving leaving it because Altair is just in his undersuit which is basically a full body cat suit and Malik is wearing normal ass clothes. After a few days Malik asks Altair about what happened and Altair is just still tired and emotionally unstable that he tells Malik and allows Malik to comfort him despite the fact that they’d literally had a rocky relationship for decades.

They wait a week before the two of them leave the safe house to the care of the older kids to find an internet cafe where they can access a private server that’s still up because it was stored on a society server and is just very private. The server contains a forum for the Assassins and is mostly a bulletin board for everyone to check and get news about what they should do in the event of a nightmare scenario like this. Altair and Malik check in and announce which novices are with them. They get messages from some very happy parents to know their children are alive. The main bulletin is the one saying that Mario was killed making sure people got out of the tunnels. A lot of high standing Assassins were now dead and the remaining First Classes alive are in hiding and figuring out what to do and where everyone should go. Altair thinks about messaging Rauf but he just can’t bring himself to because he just feels so shitty still that their son is dead.

Society news has also been having a fucking field day with what happened and the Templars spun it as them destroying a terrorist cult that were living right under their noses. Thankfully the technology in the fortress was sabotaged to be bricks by the Core Programmers and all in house servers were fried into oblivion after transferring as much as they could to a server farm in California so there isn’t a lot to salvage outside of the weapons and creating media buzz to make the people who lived there look like sociopaths who tortured children. The Templars did manage to kill a lot of Assassins in this raid but a lot also escaped and along with the main news bulletin saying Mario was dead the other one said to just lay low, don’t cause a scene, and to get as far from St. Adams as possible and here’s the account number and info for one of the Order’s bank accounts so you all don’t starve be safe and we love you.

So Altair and Malik are together with a bunch of scared novices and know they need to get further from St. Adams. And then this is where the story is so far in the future I am not quite sure exactly what sort of events happen next. I just know that Malik and Altair work their shit out. They don’t become romantic because they both know better but they do work out all their issues and deal with their resonance bullshit. They get away from St. Adams and eventually a message on the forum says that all Assassins are to make their way towards northern NFC up where there’s not a lot of people. The First Classes have basically decided to purchase an entire old town that became a ghost town after the Collapse and has been in a real state since then.

So they make their way up north, past the Great Lakes into what was once Canada to the coordinates the First Classes gave. They’ve also since sent out messages to all novices on their pilgrimage that the fortress is no longer safe and they should stay in society until contacted again for safety since there is no home to come back to yet. Altair and Malik arrive at the town and there are already people there. The novices they have are slowly reunited with their parents as they show up. Altair meets up with Rauf again and cue more Altair sobbing because their son is dead. Can you tell I like making Altair cry yet?

It takes about two weeks for everyone to make their way up to the new place and that’s when they start tallying the dead or missing. A surprising amount of people are still alive but there are some casualties. Of Alpha, Kanwai, and Sally didn’t survive but thankfully everyone else did though several of them are so severely wounded they won’t be able to continue being in Alpha. While missing limbs weren’t an issue before there is no robotics or engineering offices anymore to get them prosthetics to keep them in the field. The order here in America is in pretty dire straits as the European one is now only recovering from. It will be _years_ until they have a new proper fortress but in the meantime the plan of action is to repair the town so people can live in it. There’s also a matter of needing a new Mentor since Mario is dead. The First and Second Classes all cast a vote after a lot of deliberation and Rauf is elected the new Mentor with Mario gone.

First order of business is fix the town and make it livable and make sure it’s safe for their children out on their pilgrimages to come home to. They also send messages out to the Australians and Singaporeans about what’s happened. Both other fortresses send aid in money, supplies, and helping hands. One of those helping hands happens to be Leila and when she and Lucy meet Lucy is thrilled and tells her all about the other two proto human boys who might be her match because obviously Desmond is hers. While the plan is keep the kids on their pilgrimage until the town is rebuilt Rauf gets a LOT of angry messages saying they better tell them where this town is because they want to come home and help damnit. Which leads Darim and Desmond showing up and Kaley’s son Duncan who Desmond finally gets to meet and he’s like ‘wow… that’s scary. We look really alike. No wonder your mom projected on me.’

When Desmond meets Leila he contacts Clay and Daniel (even though he’s not ‘supposed to’ cause they’re on their pilgrimage) but he makes Rauf tell them there’s a girl here. Daniel doesn’t answer but Clay comes back but it takes him a bit because he’s nervous and scared it’s Daniel’s match and not his. The rebuilding is well under way by the time Clay shows up and he literally faints when he meets Leila and she catches him like the swooning damsel he is lols.

For Daniel he’s followed the lead Haytham promised him to South Africa and has been hunting for his match there since he left for his official pilgrimage. He finds her. Also finds Haytham. Since the 2 or so months that have passed since the St. Adams fortress was destroyed Haytham has been happy but also annoyed. He lost Lucy even though he told her to return to him during the attack and while they killed a lot of Assassins and destroyed their fortress a lot escaped. He found Hannah, who’d been living a perfectly normal life with her adopted mom and dad in South Africa and was going to college when Haytham showed up like an asshole and basically kidnapped her. Then Daniel found Hannah and Haytham and Haytham tries to talk Daniel into joining him and he’ll tell Daniel where he had Hannah. Daniel’s just like ‘how about you tell me anyway and I don’t break your fucking teeth’. Like Daniel is the absolute LAST proto human you want to fuck with. All the others would listen to gentle coercion or be manipulated. Daniel? No. He was (kinda) abused by the Australian Assassins, he was told to wait to go find his match, his ‘dad’ is probably dead because of the Templar attack and Haytham thinks he can sweet talk Daniel? Fuck no. Daniel is so the most unstable of the proto humans because of his drive and obsession with finding his match.

In the end he’s the one threatening Haytham and Haytham tells Daniel where Hannah is and just for good measure Daniel kills him anyway for ‘what you did to my friends, my family, and my dad you piece of soggy shit’. Then he goes and rescues Hannah literally at the exact same time she manages to pick the lock on the door open and their first meeting is her punching him RIGHT in the face and then freaking out like ‘omg I’m sorry I thought you were that bad man! I’m sorry I’m sorry!!!!’ Then of course she finds out Daniel is her match and Daniel doesn’t even care she just punched him because she’s wonderful and perfect. Alls well that ends well for Daniel and Haytham gets what he fucking deserves.

Back with the Assassins it takes some months but they fix up the town and get it working and they also build more housing for all the people that are going to be staying there then form a fake construction company. Rauf hires tonnnnnnnns of construction workers and miners to start digging a new fortress. It’s decided that a single, straight, shaft was what caused the easy destruction of the St. Adams fortress in the first place so instead they have basically a bunch of huge squares dug out using some really scary huge machines and explosives. And this is all gravy since really the end of the story is Daniel and Hannah meeting and being together but I’m telling you so it doesn’t come up as a question later lols. So this takes a few years and their Assassin trained architects design a new fortress for them and construction starts on it as soon as possible. This takes the better part of a decade because of the scope of the project and all workers sign a confidentiality paper that if they talk the Order will sue them into oblivion and maybe murder them (the murder is subtext).

The new fortress is topped with a huge metal and concrete slab, covered in dirt and grass and turned into an animal pasture with the entrance being a ‘farm house’ close by. It’s made up of several large squares connected by underground tunnels with each box serving a specific purpose. There are also multiple escape tunnels that are dug and ways to get out so what happened at St. Adams doesn’t happen again. When the fortress is finally complete Altair steps down as Alpha-One literally to celebrate since he, the rest of Alpha and Beta, Charlie, and Delta have been working their asses off the past few years to make sure their order has enough money to keep up the break neck pace of building their new home and can just keep surviving. The St. Adams fortress was mostly self sufficient with everything except food but now they have to rebuy all the stuff they need to exist other than construction supplies.

Alpha is much smaller than it once was when it finally disbands with Ehan, Mira, Diyari, Sarah and Ziio all unable to continue their service properly after the destruction of the fortress years ago through some reason or another leaving the remaining Alpha to be Chris, Munahid, Jari, and Haytham of the original group and Altair also accepted Duncan, and Tazim into Alpha as well though not Desmond since it’s against protocol for children of members of Alpha to be members of Alpha. Altair names Duncan the next One since Haytham refuses when he asks, he just wants to relax now with Ziio and his stepson Connor (bet you thought I forgot!). Unsurprising to everyone everyone Duncan names Tazim his second.

Now retired Altair can enjoy the fact that he’s got grandkids to go with his kids. Once they got their feet under them Rauf and the other First Classes agreed that they needed to have a LOT of children to resupply their ranks. As such anyone who wanted to be joined during a Season was allowed and they also mandated joining for more population. Even people who might already have a kid can have more kids. Altair and Rauf have another kid and Rauf also goes ‘it’s for the good of the order you’re having more kids with other people jerk face’ because Altair tells him about the 12/13th EVs. Altair does put his foot down at three new kids though because ‘Rauf I’m ollllld’. But he does end up being joined with Cain (they both think it’s hella weird cause they’re just friends) and Kaley (also hella weird but it’s decided they need to also have stronger tech and supports since so many of them died) and weirdly also Mira (who is horrified because _why_ would you do this to me Rauf???? How will I ever look at him again??? But same reason he gets joined with Kaley). So I don’t wanna hear nothing about ships lols. Malik probably also ends up having another kid or two because he’s one of the few men with access to support/tech EVs and they _really_ need more tech/support.

Then, just to throw a fucking wrench into the Seasons there is Desmond, Lucy, Clay and Leila. Two pairs of perfectly fertile people who are……….. _veRY BUSY_ and excited to be with each other and have a couple kids each naturally in the 8-10 years this aftermath takes place in. They have babies in the middle of Seasons, as the Season is ending (on time) or when it starts and everyone is just like ‘… can you like, calm down maybe?’ and they’re just sooooo offended like ‘we’re literally giving you 8 fertile Assassins stop fucking complaining!’ The kids they have do not have resonance since it’s something triggered inside an AWC but since the nanites are part of Lucy and Leila it does affect their unborn children and they do have EVs. All of them, like their parents and Altair does. Reason Cain doesn’t have them is because his mom was just some society lady and nanites wouldn’t be passed to him from his dad since it doesn’t work like that.

And that’s it. That’s the story of Pro Human, plus some fan service at the end lols. Man, that took 16.5k words to get out. Imagine how long it would be and how long it would take me to write this shit out chapter by chapter. We’d be here FOREVER. But now you got your closure on what the hell happens. The Q&A is going below from previous chapters. And as a reminder you’ll find a bunch of supplemental stuff on my writing tumblr, shotgunsandstars and I will be answering all future questions about this story there as well. Just search Pro Human for all the info.

Q&A goes from chapter 16 and back to whenever I feel like talking

Could [Kanwai] still go to Society and request a child there, without the Brotherhood's permission? Could she raise it there, and still be an Assassin? Long ago you said not all the members live in the Fortress. Kanwai already doesn't accept the Brotherhood's belief that she would amount to nothing. Would they let her?

So she could. She totally could. But she wouldn’t because it’s genetic. Even if she had a child that child would be blacklisted in the fortress. Also Kanwai isn’t that concerned… with having babies until she gets with Chris but like understands that it isn’t a good idea. Also she wouldn’t be alive long enough to see it grow up and she wouldn’t do that to her kid or Chris to make it grow up knowing it’s own mother was joined knowing it wouldn’t live very long and knowing she wouldn’t live very long and leave it with Chris to deal with alone. And Chris… Yeah, he wouldn’t be a good single parent even in an Assassin situation. It comes down to the fact that Kanwai isn’t that selfish to have a kid.

 

Historically, don’t [Assassins] tend to be lone wolves, taking on solo missions more than team assignments. 

Yet another AC mythos bullshit holding this story back.

 

Kanwai doesn’t feel like she’s part of the team when she’s already been singled out by the Order for having a genetic disorder and told she has will not be allowed to reproduce and that nothing was expected from her because of her challenges?

Ya’ll focus so much on whenever I bring up women wanting or not wanting or can’t have kids. Did it occur to anyone that maybe Kanwai doesn’t _want_ kids?

 

I hope Desmond and Tazim befriend him because I think you mentioned Petruccio should be their age-mate and in their level.

I honestly don’t even give it a single thought. If you’d like to head canon that go right ahead but it isn’t something I think about.

 

didn't Altair once explain that if Assassins chose not to return to the Order after their Pilgrimage was over, the Order cut them free and never bothered them again? Why take Cain in? They could've left him in the Outback.

That only applies for ‘normal’ fortresses. Australia allows only girls or carrier boys to quit their pilgrimage. Cain’s dad was not a carrier. In fact he was perfectly healthy. When he dug out his own dead man chip and beacon from his body they looked _everywhere_ for him because he was too necessary for making more healthy children. The only reason they decided not to kill Cain was because the support riding along in Omega’s helmet was like ‘holy shit he looks _exactly_ like X’ (Cain’s dad wasn’t named Pipek in this AU but idk what his name was) and told them to bring him just to check.

 

The Australian Assassins say they're protecting Australians from outside threats; but whose protecting the people of Australia from THEM? 

/Finger guns

 

Is it called the Sisterhood of Assassins with men included in the Australian realm?

First the fact that you call Australia a realm is hilarious. And no. They go by Order of Assassins in all fortresses and less Brotherhood because it’s more inclusive.

 

Really, I don't get why [the Australians] closed themselves off so tightly

Answered in supplementary material on my blog

 

Rauf’s drunken wonder that Altair loves him regardless of how silly he becomes.

Nah. He’s not in wonder at that. He’s in wonder cause Rauf is so… average. Like Rauf’s a solid 6 and Altair’s like a 9, maybe a 10. How the fuck did Rauf end up with a hotty like Altair? He has no fucking idea.

 

How will knowing Maria didn’t want him affect Darim in the long run?

I mean… that’s his society. He’s socialized like this while kids with no parents at all often suffer Darim does have parents. He has two dads and they love the ever loving fuck out of him. For him it’s not wrong if one of the biological parents isn’t around. It’s just what happens.

 

When Jari heard only silence in his dream, you gave me a very bad feeling of dread. That and your hints about the sad event to come make me want to freeze time right here in Pro Human to make sure Diyari stays safe and alive and well. Xazz, is Diyari going to be killed, likely on some mission with Alpha? Because that would just about destroy Jari.

I… you looked way too far into this okay. It was a visual thing and not nearly as deep. Jari saw silence in his sleep because it meant the procedure was over. Silence comes in transition. 

 

How do all of these organizations seem to know who they are? 

The science facilities sent out a broadcast to the fortresses basically going ‘hey, this are the kids we’re sending out. Keep them safe until they’re old enough and make sure they don’t die’. Signal was intercepted by other organizations because the original fortresses are all destroyed and they didn’t understand exactly what the proto humans are but they did understand the ‘fertile children able to make _more_ fertile people’ and that can be very easily manipulated into something evil and gross by these evil organizations. Being able to sell fertile eggs or sperm or for experimentation to see how they tick would be great for their organizations and mark them as ‘saviors’ of the human race a second time.

 

Ok, I know you haven't revealed yet the nature of the children, but I'm going to guess here and suggest they're clones? Maybe these kids are clones of important people from before the Collapse? 

So, say if they _had_ been clones, they… then wouldn’t be clones. The original person they were made from would have been long dead by now. That negates the fact that they are clones and gives them full personhood.

 

Rauf especially should have known better than to use Malik as the bait. I wonder how he convinced Malik to participate? Maybe because they have a baby coming and need to try to work together a little more?

Nothing even nearly that clever; Rauf just lied. Before the Sad Part Rauf just wanted to make these two work their shit out and figured the best way to do so would be to just throw them together and make them work it out.

 

How will [Munahid] explain to [Si’u] that his birth mother didn't want him? That his birth, rather than bringing great joy, caused her trauma and regret?

Honestly he’s just going to lie. No one will tell Si’u any different that his mother didn’t die in the fortress attack like Munahid tells him. And Munahid won’t have to lie when he tells Si’u that he cared a great deal for his mother (even if it was more like a protective crush than actual affection). And Si’u will have uncle Ehan too.

 

What a double blow that Rauf unintentionally delivered. First, telling Yusuf he's in a committed relationship and there's basically no chance to be with Rauf, then telling Yusuf that he has a son whom he loves very much.

Bruh… Yusuf isn’t unaware Rauf’s got a kid or a partner. He’s just a fucking kid tho and hopeful.

 

I bet there's nothing Altair loves better than being knocked over and covered in a pile of little children

I mean… you’re not wrong and since he has a bunch of them there’s also a lot of grandkids to go around and climb all over grandpa Altair and he just sits there like ‘this is fine’ while Rauf laughs at him.

 

AO3 questions

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED ON [Altair’s] PILGRIMAGE???

Altair had a pretty normal pilgrimage and then he met Adha. Altair had perfect resonance with Adha thanks to some lucky genetics. He was honestly going to never go back to the Assassins because he wanted to stay with her and Adha found the idea of going and living underground horrible. He was going to change his entire future to be with her. Then some bad people (not Templars) found out that Altair was an Assassin novice out and about and wanted to capture him to get secrets from him about the location of the fortress and other Assassin secrets. In the fight Adha ended up dead. That was the _real_ first time Altair activated his 12/13 th EVs but doesn’t remember it because he was just out of his fucking mind.

The worst part was that after it happened and Altair was alone in their apartment surrounded by blood of everyone he’d killed and sobbing over his dead girlfriend he went to go wash up the blood and call the police he found some paperwork on Adha’s desk. She’d been pregnant at the time. After that Altair returned to the Assassins and did his best to get himself killed in Alpha until Mario was like ‘okay we can’t lose this kid’s genes push him through the Season’ and having Darim made him realize he had more to live through even though Adha was dead.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any follow-up questions feel free to ask. I will be answering any and all questions you have in as excruciating detail as possible.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed and see you on another fic o/  
> And don't be shy about leaving your thoughts here as well.


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